


Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire

by purplejabberwocky



Series: Skulduggery Pleasant: Dead Men Walking [2]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, The Dead Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 71,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know how it is--you think you've saved the world, and then ANOTHER evil villain turns up with an unbeatable monster and starts breaking things.</p><p>Oh yes, and your worst secret is about to come out. To the people you don't want to lose the most ...</p><p> </p><p>NOTE: Updated 13 December 2015 for nitpicks and streamlining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hanging around

**Author's Note:**

> Contains major spoilers for Book Eight: 'Last Stand of Dead Men'.

Valkyrie Cain hit the parapet and tumbled, unable to stop herself, and with a panicked gasp she disappeared off the edge. The church tower stood high and proud, looking out over Dublin City. The night breeze was brisk and carried snatches of laughter from the street below. It was a long way down.

A man in a tattered coat walked up to the edge and peered over. He smirked.

“This is insulting,” he said. “Don’t they know how dangerous I am? I am very, very dangerous. I’m a killer. I’m a trained killing _machine_. The Killer Supreme. And still they send _you_. A _child_.”

Valkyrie’s grip on the ledge loosened. She ignored the goading of the man standing above her and looked around for something else to grab on to. She looked everywhere but down. Down was where the street was, where the long drop and the sudden stop was. She didn’t want to look down. She didn’t want anything to do with _down_ right now.

Where was Skulduggery? Or Ghastly? She’d even accept her father, knowing he’d freak out afterwards.

“What age are you?” the man continued. “Thirteen? What kind of responsible adult sends a thirteen-year-old child to stop me? What kind of thinking is that?”

Valkyrie swung herself towards the tower, planting her feet against a buttress. The fear started to work through her and she felt herself freeze up. She closed her eyes against the oncoming wave of paralysis.

The man was Vaurien Scapegrace, currently wanted in five countries for various counts of attempted murder. Valkyrie hadn’t even been looking for him. How did she manage to find the man Skulduggery and Dexter were after when she wasn’t looking for him?

Scapegrace hunkered down at the edge and smiled happily. “I am turning murder into an art form. When I—when I _kill_ , I’m actually painting a big, big picture, using blood and, and … messiness. You know?”

Below Valkyrie, the city twinkled. Something moved along the wall. She thought it was a cat, and was trying to avoid actually looking at it, except that the shadow was too big to be a cat. But she still didn’t look at it.

“I’m an artist,” Scapegrace continued. “Some people don’t appreciate that. Some people don’t recognise true talent when they see it. And that’s fine. I’m not bitter. My time will come.”

The shadow, Valkyrie saw, was Skulduggery. Creeping along a window ledge. He looked at her and tipped his hat and then motioned for her to fall. Valkyrie shook her head. He motioned more insistently.

Scapegrace was still talking. Valkyrie was trying very hard not to look down. She heaved a sigh, deliberately big so that Skulduggery could see her displeasure. Then Scapegrace cut off to a very firm, “Excuse me.”

She looked up.

“What?” Scapegrace snapped, turning away from the edge without getting up from his crouch. His head snapped back and he fell on his backside with a yelp. “That was my nose!”

“That’s my daughter,” Dad said heatedly. “Now get out of my way before I—I—I push you over the edge!”

“I’ll take her with me if you do,” Scapegrace threatened, getting to his feet. “Aren’t you just a _mortal_ , anyway? What can you d—”

He was cut off by a fist impacting his face again. He stumbled and teetered on the parapet, and with a shriek he fell, his hands clutching the air. Skulduggery caught him by the ankle and he swung, the back of his head impacting the side of the church. Grinning, Valkyrie looked back at her father’s face peering anxiously over the edge.

“Are you okay, Steph?”

“Sure,” she said. “Just hanging around, you know.” She sounded breathless, and Dad sounded nervous when he laughed. He reached out, but Valkyrie wasn’t sure she could hang on with one hand long enough to find a grip on his. “Just a minute,” she said.

“What about me?” she heard Scapegrace whine in a voice edged with panic.

“I’m thinking about dropping you, actually,” Skulduggery said. “After all, you’re very heavy and awkward to carry, wriggling like you are.” Scapegrace made a strangled noise.

Valkyrie ignored them. She exhaled slowly to control her breathing. “Find the space where everything connects,” she murmured, and then released her grip on the edge long enough to feel the air against her palm. She pushed it down and in the instant it gave her before gravity took hold again she snatched her dad’s hand. He caught her and pulled her up, and Ghastly was there beside him and _he_ pulled her up too.

She staggered when her feet hit the roof, even though Ghastly put her down gently because her knees were still shaking. Then she straightened, pushing back her hair. “See?” she said brightly. “I’m fine.”

Dad made a sound like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or groan, and then hugged her fiercely. “What just happened?” he asked, muffled into her shoulder. “This was supposed to be a chaperoned outing. How you do wind up hanging from the roof of a church on a chaperoned outing?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Ghastly peered over the edge. “Are you okay down there?”

“Just fine,” said Skulduggery, his voice wafting up from below. “I’m going to throw Scapegrace up to you. Think you can catch him?”

Ghastly considered that. “I don’t know. May as well give it a try, I suppose. I doubt he’ll be able to squeeze in through the little window you went through.”

“Wait!” Scapegrace yelped. “There has to be another way!”

“Of course there’s another way,” Skulduggery told him. Valkyrie grinned. “I could drop you. That would get you back to the ground in a jiffy.”

Another strangled, wordless objection.

“It _would_ attract a bit much attention, though,” Ghastly pointed out regretfully. “It’s only just past seven o’clock. There are still people down there. One of them might notice.”

“True,” Skulduggery conceded. “We’ll just have to hope for the best, then. Are you ready, Ghastly? One—”

“No, wait!” Scapegrace shrieked. Ghastly stepped up to the edge, winking at Valkyrie and her father. Valkyrie was sure that the way Dad’s shoulders were shaking was to stop himself from laughing out loud.

“Two—”

“I’ll do anything!”

“Three—”

“Pleasedon’tthrowme—” Scapegrace’s words cut off with a scream as he came sailing up at least another six feet again the height of the church’s roof. He reached the top of the throw and started to fall, and the scream took on a higher pitch.  With a lazy sort of strength Ghastly reached out and snatched him out of the air, sending him tumbling across the roof. He came to rest about ten feet away and lay there gasping. A moment later Skulduggery came soaring gracefully up over the edge.

“You all right?” he asked Valkyrie, straightening up and dusting off his suit.

“That,” Valkyrie said, grinning, “was amazing.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

“ _We_ are,” Ghastly corrected him, stepping away from the edge.

“You didn’t answer Skulduggery’s question,” Dad scolded her, wagging his finger in her face.

“I’m okay,” Valkyrie promised. “Really.” She made a face. “I just wasn’t expecting to run into an attempted-murderer during a history lesson.”

That was all it was meant to be. Valkyrie found history lessons boring, but when Dad had realised the sorcerers were a prime resource of period architecture he had been ecstatic. They had compromised: field-trips to famous historical buildings while Skulduggery and Ghastly gave them tours with information not even tour-guides knew. She wasn’t going to admit it, but it was actually really interesting this way.

Except that apparently Scapegrace had been hiding out in the church’s attic and recognised her, and decided she’d be a good feather in his cap.

It made sense as a hiding place. Ghastly had just been saying downstairs that most sorcerers didn’t entertain the idea of God. They had no reason or desire to go anywhere near a church.

Skulduggery stepped across to where Scapegrace had struggled shakily to his feet. He was pointing at Skulduggery, his mouth opening and closing, like he still couldn’t believe he hadn’t fallen all the way to the street and wasn’t dashed on the bitumen.

“Vaurien Scapegrace,” Skulduggery said, “by the power endowed unto me under the Sanctuary Rule of Justice, I am placing you under arrest for the attempted murder of Alexander Remit and Sofia Toil in Oregon, Cothernus Ode and Armiger Fop in Sydney, Gregory Castallan and Bartholomew—”

Scapegrace lunged at him in a desperate attack that Skulduggery cut short by punching him very hard on the nose. The Killer Supreme wobbled, collapsed and started crying.


	2. Killer on the loose

The car was a 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental. It sliced through the raucous Dublin evening like a black shark, gleaming and powerful. It was a beautiful car. Valkyrie had grown to love it almost as much as Skulduggery did. She’d even heard Dad badgering Fergus about trading the car Gordon had left him for a Bentley. (Fergus had, thus far, refused.)

Valkyrie watched it through the window of Dad’s car and tried not to wish she was sitting in there with Skulduggery and Ghastly. It was half-past seven in the evening. Their history lesson had been cut short, which Valkyrie wasn’t going to admit she was a little disappointed about, and then Dad had refused to let her ride in the Bentley with a criminal who had just tried to kill her. She thought he was overreacting, because she’d have been in the car with at least Skulduggery and probably Ghastly too, but Dad had put his foot down and it wasn’t worth the argument.

This time last year she would have been at home, doing her homework or having dinner. Maybe watching TV or listening to music. Things were different now, and she didn’t have a lot of time after school anymore.

Her mother had taken the news about magic well at first, but when she realised how much danger Valkyrie had been in she started to freak. At first she’d simply refused to let Valkyrie have anything to do with it, and Skulduggery had assured her to just let Mum work out her fear first. For a while it seemed like that would never happen, but then one day Valkyrie came home from school to find Mum sitting around the table with Dad, Rover and Hopeless, listening with wide-eyed wonder as Rover told some story or another with a lot of hand movements and an amazing range of voice-acting.

There were still conditions. No magic lessons unless Valkyrie kept up on her ordinary schooling. All her lessons had to be chaperoned. Valkyrie suspected her parents discussed who got to chaperone what, which was why Dad was hardly there for when she learned magic, but she didn’t care. She was learning _magic_.

If she wasn’t at school, she was practising magic, and if she wasn’t practising magic, she was learning self-defence from one of the Dead Men or Tanith Low. These days, her life was a lot more exciting and a lot more fun. One of the only downsides was that, even a year after Serpine’s attack on the Sanctuary, she still had nightmares when she slept.

But that was the cost, she reasoned. The cost of living a life of adventure and excitement.

The owners of the Waxworks Museum had closed it down after ‘a run of break-ins’ the previous year, and set up a new and improved version in another part of the city. The Sanctuary stayed where it was, in an old, closed-down building.

They parked in the loading area at the back and Valkyrie and her father followed Skulduggery, Ghastly and Scapegrace in through the rear door. The corridors were dimly lit, and they walked past the lonely historical figures and cinematic icons that had been left to collect dust. Valkyrie traced her hand along the wall to find the switch, and the door slid open beside her. She led the way through and down the steps, her mind flashing back to the summer of the previous year, when she had been trapped inside the depths of the Sanctuary trying to protect the Book of Names from an evil sorcerer.

The Book was still there, intact and safe. Two of the Elders were dead, but Morwenna Crow, the only one to survive, had assured her that their contribution to the spell still stood. It would only fail if she was killed, something she didn’t intend to happen anytime soon.

The double-doors to their left opened and the new Elder, Thurid Guild, came out to meet them. He looked to be in his sixties, with thinning grey hair, a lined face and cold eyes.

“You found him, then,” Guild said. “Before or after he managed to kill someone?”

“Before,” Skulduggery said.

“Barely,” Dad said quietly, hugging Valkyrie sideways. Guild grunted and gestured to the Cleavers. They stepped forward and Scapegrace shrank away from them. They took him firmly by the arm and he didn’t resist. He even stopped whining about his broken nose as they led him away.

Valkyrie looked back at Guild. He wasn’t a friendly man by any means, but he seemed especially uncomfortable around her. Maybe ‘uncomfortable’ wasn’t the right word. Mostly, he outright ignored her existence. He tended to speak directly to anyone she was with and only glanced at Valkyrie when she asked a question. And then it usually only got answered if someone else answered it—or asked it. She wouldn’t feel so bad about that if he treated Dad the same way, but while Guild didn’t seem to know if he should take Dad seriously he at least spoke to him like he was a human being. Mostly.

“We may have a situation which requires your attention,” said Guild. “This way.”

Skulduggery and Ghastly exchanged looks and then fell into step behind Guild. Valkyrie hesitated, glancing up at Dad. He looked down at her, affecting a scowl just like Guild’s. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep in the giggle, he grinned, and they both followed. Guild turned and saw them, and frowned, but said nothing.

Corrival Deuce had told Valkyrie once last year: “Some people out there will try and sideline you because they think your being young is a bad thing. But others—a lot of others—will do it because they believe you’re too precious to risk.”

Time and again Valkyrie had seen evidence of the second part in her father and mother, her uncle, even the Dead Men. She didn’t mind that. Since Serpine had attacked the Sanctuary, she was even able to appreciate it. Guild was first time she’d had the first part thrown in her face so obviously.

A lot of people had wanted Guild to be Grand Mage instead of a necromancer, but Morwenna had accepted him as an Elder instead. She still had to select the second Elder who would rule with them. Valkyrie wished Corrival had accepted, but he hadn’t. She suspected Guild wanted Mr Bliss, but since he wasn’t an Elder yet Valkyrie figured either Morwenna had said no or Mr Bliss was still thinking about it.

They walked into a room with a long table, the same room where Serpine had used Sagacious Tome to ambush Meritorious last year. Valkyrie suppressed a shiver.

It wasn’t empty this time, either. Morwenna was in there, talking quietly with Dexter, who was grimacing. Mr Bliss was also there, standing in a corner and speaking into a phone. Morwenna and Dexter turned toward them, and Guild moved deeper into the room to stand by the table. Dexter grinned. “Oh, hello. I hear you found something we were looking for.”

“If you mean an attempted-murderer, no,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie did, though.”

“He found _me_ ,” Valkyrie muttered.

“Not that we’re not glad to see you all,” Ghastly added, “but what’s going on?”

“Brace yourself,” Dexter advised, throwing himself into one of the chairs. He looked worried, Valkyrie saw. Worried enough that he sat up straight in his chair, crossed his legs and folded his arms. Like he was ready for action, instead of relaxed like usual.

“Mr Bliss is just confirming it now,” Morwenna said, “but earlier tonight he received word that Baron Vengeous has been freed from the confinement facility in Russia.”

Ghastly paled. Skulduggery was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was slowly. “How did he get out?”

“Violently,” Dexter muttered.

“The nine Cleavers sent as his prison guard were killed, along with a third of the prisoners,” Bliss said, snapping his phone shut and turning toward them. His blue eyes were as piercing as ever. “His cell, like all the others, was securely bound. Nobody should have been able to use magic in any of them. Edgley.”

He nodded at Dad. Dad waved back with a weak smile. Valkyrie was never going to understand the weird almost-friendship those two had, but for some reason Bliss seemed to view Dad with something close to respect. Dad, she knew for a fact, thought Bliss was terrifying, but at the same time he seemed fascinated by the man. Bliss never failed to greet him when they met in the Sanctuary halls, anyway.

“Who’s Baron Vengeous?” Valkyrie asked. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Remember that time we told you about when Skulduggery and I got blown up?” Dexter asked.

Valkyrie grinned. “Yeah.” The name clicked. “Right. It was while arresting someone called the Baron.”

“What we didn’t say was that Baron Vengeous was one of Mevolent’s infamous Three Generals,” Skulduggery explained. “Dangerously fanatical, extremely intelligent, and very, very powerful. I saw him _look_ at a colleague of mine and my colleague … ruptured.”

“Ruptured?” Dad asked, looking pale.

Skulduggery nodded. “All over the place.” He turned to Morwenna. “Do we know who freed him?”

“Billy-Ray Sanguine,” Dexter said. Everyone turned to look at him. He spread his hands palms to himself and shrugged. “Who else can break someone out of a magically-bound cell? The only hint was that one of the walls was cracked, right? Like someone hit it with a sledgehammer?”

“How did you know that?” Bliss asked. Valkyrie wouldn’t have enjoyed being the recipient of _that_ stare.

“ _Who_ is Billy-Ray Sanguine?” Skulduggery demanded in nearly the same moment, and Valkyrie could tell from his tone that he would have been frowning if he’d had a face. Dexter opened his eyes wide.

“Why, Detective Pleasant, are you saying you _don’t_ know something that I do? For shame. I thought you were supposed to be the best. I thought—”

“Vex,” Morwenna said with a sigh. Dexter grinned.

“Just enjoying the moment, my dear Grand Mage.” He sobered a moment later. He was still smiling, but there was a cutting edge to his smile which Valkyrie had only seen when they’d just found out Serpine had kidnapped Hopeless last year. “Billy-Ray Sanguine is an assassin from Texas. He’s a burrower, and immune to holding spells and wards. He can get in anywhere, so long as he knows where he’s going. He used to work for the Baron.”

“How do you know that?” Ghastly asked.

“We’ve met before,” Dexter said simply, and from the beat of silence afterward Valkyrie could tell he had no intention of explaining. She didn’t need the way Skulduggery and Ghastly exchanged glances to know his reaction was strange. However they _had_ met, it wasn’t a nice memory.

“The prison’s location is a closely guarded secret,” Bliss said as if there had been no pause at all. “It is well hidden and well protected. Sanguine must have had inside knowledge.”

Guild made a face. “That’s the Russians’ problem, not ours. The only thing we have to concern ourselves with is stopping Vengeous.”

“You think he’ll come here then?” Valkyrie asked.

Guild looked at her and she saw his fist clench. He probably didn’t even realise he was doing it, but it signalled to Valkyrie loud and clear that he definitely didn’t like her.

“He’ll come,” the three Dead Men said at once.

“He’s got history here,” Ghastly explained.

“And a grudge against most of us,” Dexter added, “Saracen especially.”

“Why?”

“He thinks Saracen made a fool of him,” Skulduggery said.

Morwenna lifted her eyebrow. “ _Thinks_? Just how true is that story?”

The Dead Men exchanged glances. “Mostly true,” Ghastly allowed. “True enough that the Baron’s got reason to be holding a grudge.”

“What story?” This time it was Dad who asked, with that bright eagerness coupled with wariness in his eyes. It was a look he always got when he asked about the war. Morwenna shook her head, but to Valkyrie’s surprise she was smiling when she looked at them.

“The rumour goes that Saracen once met the Baron on the streets of Marseille and, quite loudly, declaimed his dress-sense,” Morwenna said. “But the Baron thought he was a stupid mortal and didn’t bother to kill him. It was only later that he found out Saracen was a sorcerer.”

“It was one of our early missions known as Dead Men,” said Ghastly, smiling at the memory. Dexter was snickering. It was a little forced, but Valkyrie assumed that was because of Vengeous’s escape. “Saracen garnered quite a reputation after that. People tend to take seriously sorcerers courageous enough to walk up to the Baron on the street and tell him his robes look awful.”

“Which is irrelevant at this time,” Guild said impatiently, shooting Morwenna a look. He turned to Skulduggery and Dexter. “We have sent our people to airports and docks around the country, in the hope of preventing him from entering. But you know better than anyone how difficult the Baron is to … contain.”

“Indeed,” Skulduggery murmured, but Valkyrie could tell from the tilt of his head that he was amused.

“I think we can assume,” Guild continued, “that if Baron Vengeous is not already here, then he will be arriving shortly. You arrested him. We’re relying on you to do it again.”

“You’d think it would be someone else’s turn,” Dexter grumbled, pushing himself to his feet. “I’d better call Erskine, then. We’re going to need everyone on this one.”

“I think that would be wise,” Morwenna said. “Thank you, Dexter.”

Guild dismissed them with a curt nod and turned toward Bliss. Morwenna gave Valkyrie and Dad a faint but tired smile before she left through another door. As they walked back through the halls, Valkyrie spoke.

“Guild doesn’t like me.”

“That’s true,” Skulduggery agreed.

“He doesn’t like you or Dad, either.”

“That _is_ mystifying.”

“Guild doesn’t like most people,” Ghastly said with a smile. “Especially people like us.”

“Why?” Dad asked, a genuine look of bewilderment on his face. “What’s wrong with people like us?”

“He seems to think we don’t get things done quickly enough,” said Dexter, “or efficiently enough, or with enough dignity.”

“I wish Corrival had said yes to Morwenna,” Valkyrie muttered.

“Corrival’s had enough of leading people. He’s earned his retirement.”

“This Vengeous person,” Dad said cautiously. “Is he really very bad?”

The Dead Men exchanged looks. “The worst,” Skulduggery admitted. “I don’t think he’s ever forgotten the time I threw a bundle of dynamite at him. It didn’t kill him, obviously, but it definitely ruined his day.”

“And mine,” Dexter grumbled.

“You shouldn’t have gotten in the way.”

“I was fifty feet away. Down two different tunnels. If that’s not in the way, what isn’t?”

Valkyrie just smiled, listening to them argue as they came out of the Sanctuary and made for the cars. Baron Vengeous might be evil, but he couldn’t be as bad as Serpine, and even if he was, Ireland was in good hands no matter what Guild thought of them.

“Where are you going now?” she asked. “Are you going to see China?”

Ever since Hopeless had been captured by Serpine, the Dead Men had an unspoken agreement not to go to him for ‘work’ reasons. That meant going to the mysterious China Sorrows for information, who was almost as good but not nearly as trustworthy. Valkyrie had only met her a few times before, the first during an orientation into the Sanctuary’s resources. Dad was the one with her then—the agreement between him and Mum was that Mum watched the magic and the martial-arts, but Dad learned about the history and politics of magic.

It had been awkward. Really awkward. China Sorrows was the most beautiful woman Valkyrie had ever seen. The thing that made it awkward was seeing Dad act like a lovesick puppy over anyone _but_ Mum. Both of them had agreed never to talk about it again, and above all, don’t mention it to Mum unless Mum was about to meet China herself.

“Probably,” Skulduggery admitted.

“Can I come?”

“That’s up to your father.”

Dad frowned as Valkyrie turned toward him. “You mother’s expecting us back before eight. And you still have homework.”

Valkyrie slumped. “Nuts.”

If Scapegrace hadn’t tried to kill her, she was sure that he would have let her go. Or maybe it was just China. Dad hadn’t gone back to the library since then. He always waited in the car. Valkyrie knew it wasn’t worth arguing about. Dad let her get away with a lot, but when he put his foot down he was hard to move.

“Good night, Valkyrie,” Ghastly said with a wave as he got into the Bentley.

“Sleep tight,” Skulduggery added.

“Don’t let the bed-bugs bite!” Dexter called, and Valkyrie laughed.

“You’re all goons.”

Then she watched them pull away from the loading bay, and went to join Dad in his car.


	3. The Elders

It wasn’t far from midnight when Morwenna appeared in the shadows beside Hopeless’s cottage, rising up from almost nothing. She paused for a moment to marvel at the stars overhead. Two centuries ago, you could have gotten stars like that nearly anywhere. Now, you had to live in the middle of nowhere. Morwenna had often wondered why Hopeless chose to make his home here, of all places, so close to the mansion. There were many other country cottages he could have bought, where he would still have a wonderful view of the stars. As yet she had never had the nerve to ask.

Hopeless opened the door before she got there and stood in the light until she reached it. “Good evening.”

He smiled at her and stood aside to let her in. She did so, looking around. From the entrance she could see the garden better. From all accounts Serpine had left it a mess. Now she could see the tallness of the vegetables, hear chickens clucking and bees buzzing. It was like nothing had changed.

Almost nothing.

She waited while Hopeless bolted the door, took her cloak and then motioned her to take a seat in one of the plush armchairs by the quietly crackling fire. Warmth wasn’t a luxury necromancers had in the Temple, so even after having left Morwenna took it wherever she could.

Morwenna sat in the chair over which Hopeless had laid her cloak, slipping off her shoes and pulling her feet up under her like she was a much younger woman. Then she slowly relaxed with a sigh. She was beginning to understand just how much of a burden Meritorious had carried without ever letting her or Sagacious know. True, his was slightly different. That had been the expectation of a leader who had carried Ireland through a centuries-long war. For her, it was the struggle against the perception of necromancers and the knowledge that the Temple would try to use this to their own gain. Already she’d had two letters from High Priest Tenebrae. Two more in the last year than in the last century.

That was why Guild was her Elder. She hadn’t really had a choice in that. It had been a compromise, for her and for the people objecting to her rule. The Sanctuary was no longer a safe place for her. Hopeless’s cottage had been for a long time, for anyone who sought him for help. That was what made it so odd that he had chosen this place. Maybe, in a way, that was why he had.

That was also why she was here.

She smelled tea and honey, and opened her eyes with a smile just as Hopeless set a tray down on the ottoman between them. Morwenna reached out to pick up the nearest mug. “Thank you.”

He smiled again. Hopeless was a far more expressive man than he appeared. All his expressions were around his eyes and mouth, and that was truer now than ever. This particular smile was small and understanding, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He settled in the other chair, wrapping his hands around his mug so the heat could soothe them, and then waited. Of course he knew she was here for a reason.

One of those reasons was a comforting silence, without judgement.

Hopeless’s secret hadn’t been an open one, after the war. The Elder Council as a whole hadn’t been told about his mind-reading for a number of decades. Morwenna had always known something was odd about Eachan’s relationship with the man who had ostensibly been his valet for so many years and she had wondered, for a time, if the cause might be something else. It had been Hopeless who came to her and explained everything. She still remembered asking him why he was trusting her. She was a necromancer.

He had looked at her steadily and said, “That is exactly why.”

It was in that moment that Morwenna truly understood how deep his power ran. Because he _knew_. He knew what necromancers were, what they sought. He had to have known the moment he met any necromancer high-ranking enough to be let in on the secret. But more incredible than that, he understood that this knowledge could not be released to any Sanctuary, because none of them had the resources for another world war—and a war it would have been. He had kept that secret even from Meritorious … even, Morwenna suspected, from the Dead Men.

That was when Morwenna started trusting Hopeless. She didn’t have a choice, but on the other hand, she didn’t feel afraid to do so. Meritorious was the only other man who could say that of her.

“How have you been?” she asked eventually, after her mug was half-empty and the warmth had sapped away most of her tension.

Hopeless tilted his head and waggled a hand back and forth. So-so. From what she recalled, he had only moved back into his cottage a month or so ago. Before then, he had lived at the Midnight Hotel even after repairs to the cottage had been completed.

“Your hands look better,” she observed. “Do they still pain you often?”

His mouth quirked up and he motioned at the fire. Often enough, then. It wasn’t quite what one could call ‘warm’ tonight, but it wasn’t cold, either. Hopeless didn’t take to the cold as well as he had. It wasn’t because of age, no matter what the additional grey hairs suggested.

“If you need more creams you should go to Professor Grouse,” she admonished him. He lifted his eyebrows and put a hand over his heart, but his expression was otherwise deadpan. Morwenna lifted one eyebrow back. “If you were trying to avoid people worrying, yes, you’d ‘forget’. Don’t make me tell Rue and Ravel.”

The grin was fleeting, but it was there, and Hopeless’s shoulders rose and fell in resignation. The Dead Men already knew and were keeping an eye on him, then. “Did Dexter ring you?”

She regretted asking almost at once. All the humour fled from Hopeless’s face and he nodded.

“You don’t have to get involved.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and in spite of herself she smiled ruefully. Of course he’d get involved. If one Dead Man was involved, they all were, especially when it came to people like the Baron. That wasn’t even taking into account the true reason why she was here tonight. If things went the way she hoped, he wouldn’t be able to avoid the situation.

Hopeless met her gaze. Morwenna exhaled slowly, almost put down her mug, then held it closer instead. That was the thing about Hopeless. Even when you knew that he could read your mind, he always waited for something important to be said out loud. She’d asked him once if it was because it was rude to make assumptions. He’d told her no. It was a mental process. Saying something out loud made a real and important difference in the mentality of the person in question—and often a necessary one.

“Is Saracen here?” she asked. He shook his head. Morwenna nodded. No one could ever quite be sure what Saracen knew, but Morwenna still didn’t want him overhearing this conversation. She said evenly, “I need your help.” That was a good start. It was a relevant start. He watched her, his thumb tracing the handle of his mug, and waited. “I need you to become an Elder.”

Hopeless sighed and looked away into the fire. Not encouraging. Morwenna went on nonetheless.

“I know you aren’t used to being in the public eye, but we need you. I need you. Guild is poised to take over the moment he, or any of his supporters, think I have crossed a line. They will be watching closely while the Baron is dealt with. I need someone I can trust to balance him.”

The mind-reader looked back and signed Corrival’s name.

“He’s refused.” Which Hopeless well knew. It wasn’t like him to be so obvious.

He signed Bliss’s name, more slowly due to the need to spell it out. If he and the Dead Men had developed a shorter hand-sign for Bliss, Morwenna didn’t know it.

“Bliss is a good man, but he’s Guild’s first choice and has his own motives. I can’t trust he would support _me_ , and I can’t defend myself on two fronts. I can’t lead when I suspect attack from my own Elders. I need support, Hopeless. I cannot do this alone.”

Hopeless frowned and signed, ‘What else?’

Morwenna sipped her tea while she collected her thoughts. Didn’t he know? He ought to know. Another demand for articulation? Possibly. It had to be. Morwenna couldn’t even begin to understand the human mind like Hopeless. She lowered the mug and gazed out the window, even though the lanterns kept her from seeing anything in the darkness.

“I accepted being Elder because there were things I wanted to change,” she said finally. “I thought, at the time, that leading by example would be enough. The debacle with Serpine last year proved I only grew complacent. If I want changes to happen, I’ll have to _make_ them happen. For that, I need your help.”

She looked back at him, sitting up straight and calm even with her feet curled under her. “You know about the Temple,” she said. “You know what the Temple preaches. You know that when I left, they had just called Lord Vile our saviour—the Death Bringer. You know that’s _why_ I left.”

Because Lord Vile was an abomination. The most natural necromancer anyone had ever known, and one who ruled with terror. In the days he’d lived at the Temple, everyone there lived in fear. She’d watched as strong necromancers, people she knew, had their lives thrown away for his ridiculous display of power.

Morwenna Crow was eccentric. Everyone had known that. But it hadn’t been until then that even she realised _why_ , or what differed in her thinking compared to everyone else’s. It was the fear.

She didn’t fear death. She feared Vile, but she didn’t fear _death_. Death was beautiful. It was natural. It was powerful. Lord Vile encompassed everything about it that she reviled—its terror, its pain, the idea that it must be fought at all costs. Death was a thing to be respected and accepted, not feared and cowered from.

That was all the Temple did. It feared. The moment Morwenna realised that she didn’t, she knew she could not stay. So she hadn’t.

But she’d left people behind.

“Necromancers don’t approve of parentage,” she murmured, “and I was useless as a breeder.” She’d been sterile for centuries, and accepted that. “My students were the nearest things I could have to children, and I could take none of them with me. Nor theirs.” She had tried. Solomon was the only one who had even stopped to consider it, and even he had refused. He, also, had been too afraid.

She turned to look at Hopeless in the eye. If anyone could and did understand her feelings, it was him, not because he was in any similar position but because he had felt them in her mind. “I need you to help me save my children. Help me save my children so they can rescue their _faith_.”

Their faith, the Temple, from stagnating in never-ending terror. From rejecting all the magnificence in a life well-spent before a death well-earned. From fearing a natural cycle as old as time.

Hopeless looked back, but with a crinkle in his brow. Morwenna kept her voice soft. “You are used to the shadows. As am I. But you know as well as I do there is a time when everything must come to light. Please.”

She set down her mug and gripped his hand. “Help me avoid the same fate Eachan Meritorious did.”

Something flickered in his eyes and he glanced away, but didn’t take his hand from hers. His knuckles were red and slightly swollen. The scars where Kenspeckle Grouse had knitted his joints back together were thin but visible lines. They always would be.

There would be objections. Politics was all about manoeuvring. Hopeless as an Elder would nicely stop some thorns in her side, and curtail several more, once he knew about them. She didn’t even mean for his magic to become common knowledge; she would never demand that of him before he was ready. But just his being there, in support, would be of help to her.

She said nothing. She did nothing. She simply waited for him to come to his own conclusion, hoping it would be the same as hers.

Finally Hopeless closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he looked back at Morwenna and nodded.


	4. Fireballs in the park

Valkyrie woke early. She took a pebble from her bedside table and sat on the floor, cross-legged. The pebble was flat and smooth in her hand. She focussed on it like Skulduggery had taught her. She focussed until she could feel the air on her skin, and she focussed on how it all connected. Slowly the pebble began to rise off her palm, held aloft by the air itself. A part of her still thrilled to see this, but she kept that part of her subdued. To use magic, she couldn’t afford to let anything ruin her calm.

And then that voice, drifting up the stairs like the whine of a dentist’s drill, and the pebble fell back into her hand. Muttering to herself, Valkyrie stood up and walked into the bathroom, her practice done for the morning. She took a shower then pulled on her school uniform before heading down to the kitchen.

Her mother was there, and sitting beside her was Valkyrie’s shrill, sharp-featured aunt, Beryl. Fergus was sitting opposite them. He looked like he wasn’t sure he wanted to be there. Valkyrie couldn’t blame him.

“Morning,” Valkyrie said as she passed them, going straight for the cupboard.

“Hi, love,” her mother said with one of those smiles she gave Valkyrie whenever she couldn’t decide whether she was more worried or proud. Fergus was taking a mouthful of tea, but he gave her a nod and a small smile. It was a rusty sort of smile, the smile of someone who didn’t smile very often, but a year ago, he wouldn’t have given her a smile at all.

Then Valkyrie had found out he’d known about magic and sorcerers all along, just like Gordon. He just preferred to keep out of it. They’d had a lot of fights over that, but when push came to shove Fergus had walked into a dangerous situation to save Valkyrie from doing the same. It hadn’t worked, but she appreciated the sentiment.

“Good morning, Stephanie,” Beryl said primly.

“Beryl,” Valkyrie said in return.

“How is school going for you?”

Valkyrie poured some cereal into her bowl and added milk. She didn’t bother sitting. She did see Fergus look down, though, and Mum’s smile turn more smirk-like. “It’s okay.”

“Are you studying hard? My girls are always studying.”

“Steph’s learning martial arts,” Mum said proudly, interrupting Beryl before she could keep going. Valkyrie grinned at her, and her mother grinned back. She hadn’t expected Mum to be so excited about that. Tanith had been teaching Mum some things as well, even though she wasn’t young and nimble enough to learn the really impressive stuff. That didn’t matter, Tanith had said. As long as Valkyrie’s mother could defend herself long enough for someone else to get there, that was more important. (That was just before Mum’s expression had grown fixed and Valkyrie wound up having enforced parental help for her homework every night for the next week.)

Beryl’s expression grew stiff and she tutted. “Really, Melissa? You’re letting her learn to fight, when violence in our young people is what’s wrong with the world these days?”

“I think a girl should be able to protect herself,” Mum said firmly, “even when I wish it wasn’t necessary.”

“That’s what boys are for,” Beryl scoffed, and she turned to Valkyrie, looking her critically up and down. “You’re a little young, but boys don’t like girls with muscles. You ought to stop this martial-arts business before it’s too late.”

“I’ll take it under consideration,” Valkyrie said, putting exactly the same polite disdain into the words that she had heard Corrival use. Fergus choked on his tea and coughed into his mug, preventing Beryl from saying anything. Valkyrie’s mother hid a smile behind her hand.

Her father came in, dressed in smart trousers, vest and a tie around his bare neck. He winked at Valkyrie then noticed his sister-in-law.

“Beryl,” he said, utterly failing to hide his dismay.

“Desmond. Good morning.”

“Beryl, what are you doing here? It’s not even 8 o’clock. You know I don’t like seeing you before I’ve had my first cup of coffee.”

“Here,” Fergus said, pushing the second mug by his elbow over. “Become socially acceptable.”

“But why?” Dad asked, looking puzzled but picking up his coffee. “You haven’t, yet.”

Beryl laughed that hideous fake laugh of hers. “Oh, Desmond, you’re such a messer! We’re just here to talk to Melissa, that’s all. We’ve got a lot to organise for tomorrow night.”

“Oh, dear God, the family reunion thing.”

“It’ll be wonderful!”

“But you’ll be there,” her dad said, and this time it was Valkyrie who almost choked. Fergus sighed.

“Who’ll be where?” demanded a voice from the kitchen window. Beryl shrieked and dropped her tea onto its saucer, spilling the drink all over herself. Everyone else jumped, managed to avoid making a mess, and turned toward the window to see Rover leaning over the sill with a grin.

“Mornin’, my pretties,” he said gleefully, waggling his fingers at them. Then he leaned back to shout around the house, “Hey, Saracen! I found them!”

“Of course you found them,” Saracen shouted back. “It’s their house!” He jogged around the corner, a little breathless, and peered in through the window. “Is there are party happening? Why weren’t we invited?”

“Because you’re not socially acceptable,” Dad said, pointing a finger at them. “Did I get it right, Fergus?” Fergus had his face in his hands. Beryl looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.

Saracen looked Valkyrie’s father up and down. “We’re less socially acceptable than the man going to work in a tie but no shirt?” He nodded. “I can accept that.”

“Oh, yes, the reason I’m here.” Dad turned to Mum. “I don’t have a clean one.”

“Behind the door.”

He turned again, saw the crisp white shirt hanging on the coat-hook and rubbed his hands together. “So, Steph,” he said as he took it off the hook and put it on, “looking forward to a great day at school?”

“Oh yes,” she said with mock enthusiasm.

“Don’t be like that, young lady,” Rover said with a wag of his finger at her. “You can learn an awful lot at school. Like how to kick creepy guys in the nuts when they’re bothering you.”

“You mean like you?” Valkyrie asked.

“Me! I’m not a creepy guy! I’m a friend! Aren’t I a friend, Fergus?”

“You’re hanging through my brother’s kitchen window,” Fergus said flatly, lifting his mug and not looking at Rover. Valkyrie watched him to see whether something she’d noticed before was still true. His mouth was a very straight line, so straight he looked as boring as she’d used to think he was, but now she was looking closer Valkyrie was almost certain a corner of it was tilting up. “I think that’s the definition of ‘creepy guy’.”

“Does that mean I can kick Rover and Saracen in bad places?” Valkyrie asked. “You know, for practice?”

Saracen shuddered. “Tanith’s been a bad influence on you. Don’t you have school?”

“Yes, school!” Rover flapped his hands at her. “Go to school and practise on the young hormonal things who need to learn restraint!”

Valkyrie laughed, standing up and sliding her bowl into the dishwasher. She hugged her mother from behind and then made for the door.

“Can I go to school too?” she heard her dad asking as she left, and grinned, going upstairs to get her bag and shoes before leaving the house.

Not for the first time, she wondered what life would be like if her parents didn’t know the family legends were true. If they hadn’t she might be doing more exciting things, but they’d be more dangerous too. Like actually confronting people like Serpine, and Vengeous, and whoever else wanted to kill her. Sometimes she wished her parents let up a little bit more, but then she reminded herself that they could have told her she wasn’t allowed to learn magic at all. It still made her feel sick to remember her father in the Repository last year, but then she remembered how comforting it had been for him to be there.

That was why Mum didn’t let him sit in on the magic lessons, she was sure. With Mum keeping an eye on things, they’d both be okay. And things were better this way. They saw Fergus smile sometimes. Valkyrie suspected he and Dad had talked, because their relationship was better now than it had been—ever.

It was probably as close to normal as she could get, even if she sometimes wished she could send a reflection to school so she could practice magic. At least they were all in it together. Except for Beryl.

Valkyrie hurried down the street and crossed the road, cutting across the Green to get to the bus-stop. The Green was actually a small park, an oasis of trees and flowerbeds and a fountain, tucked behind Main Street. It was the site of many a game of football when Valkyrie was younger. The main path curved off in another direction, which meant that Valkyrie had to pass in-between the clump of trees and the fountain to get to it, but she slowed before she got there.

One thing she had learned from Tanith’s raves was that the Dead Men were as good at soldiering as it was possible to get. They were like G2 agents. Or the Army Rangers. Or James Bond with magic. Valkyrie had, eventually, understood why it was such an honour to get taught by them.

So when her back prickled and a little voice in her mind which sounded a lot like Erskine told her that passing in-between the fountain and the trees, where she’d be completely out of sight of the roads, was a really bad idea, she listened. Valkyrie decided to go around the fountain, away from the trees.

She was still on the opposite side of the fountain when the man in black stepped out of the thicket. For a moment he looked at her. Valkyrie walked faster, watching him out of the corner of her eye. Then he was in front of her instead and she stopped, jumping back. The man was pale and oddly beautiful, and very calm.

“Valkyrie Cain,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

Valkyrie’s heart beat fast, but she glared and gripped her schoolbag, holding it between them. One hand slid into the pocket where her emergency phone was, finding one of the speed-dials. Rover had drilled it into her: always be sure you can get help. She’d told him the point was to learn how to protect herself so she wouldn’t _need_ help. It was Erskine who took her aside and told her, with a stony face, that Rover had been stuck as a statue for ten years precisely because Serpine had made sure they _couldn’t_ get help. If they had, Rover might never have been turned to stone. She’d stopped complaining then.

She wished she was wearing Ghastly’s clothes. This man was fast. Valkyrie hadn’t even seen him move. He had to be a sorcerer. Someone else was nearby, though. She could see them walking. She spoke loud so they could hear her, and so her words would be audible in her phone. “Who are you? Do you make a habit of hanging around in parks and waiting for schoolgirls?”

“I followed you from the Sanctuary,” he said. “I lost you when you came into town, so I decided to wait around until you showed up again. I even made some new friends.”

A young couple was walking toward them. She knew them. She didn’t know their names, but she’d seen them around, holding hands, laughing. They weren’t laughing now. They were pale, as pale as the man in black. They looked sick and there were bloodstains on their clothes. They watched her with dark, dead eyes. They wouldn’t be any help at all. Valkyrie looked at the man in black, remembering how fast he was.

“You’re a vampire,” she said, more quietly than she meant, and hoped that it would still reach her phone.

“Of course,” he said, sounding bored. “Now, shall you come quietly? The Baron wants you alive. Bear in mind, he did not specify _unharmed_.”

She couldn’t fight them. She had never met a vampire directly before, but she knew from how fast the man in black was that there was no way she was even close to being ready.

So she ran.

The young couple were after her, sprinting, feet thudding on the grass. She kept ahead of them. She didn’t even have to look back. She could hear how close they were. But she couldn’t hear _him_. The man in black ran at her side, moving without effort. She tried to duck away, using her bag as a shield, but he reached out a lazy hand, his fingers closing around her arm, and stopped suddenly. She jerked to a painful halt.

 _“During the day they’re pretty much mortal,”_ she heard Erskine say in her memory. It was followed by Rover’s voice from barely ten minutes ago.

_“You can learn an awful lot at school. Like how to kick creepy guys in the nuts when they’re bothering you.”_

She shoved her bag at him and swung a punch but he moved slightly and her fist connected with nothing but air. She didn’t care. She was more intent on bringing her knee up, hiding it behind the bag, so that the vampire moved into it when he avoided her punch. She felt it connect and then the vampire bent inward, his face twisting. Valkyrie wrenched her arm away and ran back in the direction of her house.

She heard the vampire snarl. She didn’t look around, but it didn’t matter. Something struck her from behind and she hit the dirt so hard the pain of losing her breath stopped her from moving. Her schoolbooks dug into her hip. She tried to roll over, but she couldn’t move and the vampire was on her back.

“ _Alive_ , not unharmed,” he snarled in her ear.

“Can I do some harm too?” Rover asked, and Valkyrie felt the rush of air over her head as the vampire’s weight vanished off her. She rolled over in time to see him twist with inhuman agility and land on his feet, staring coldly at Rover.

“Dead Men.”

“You called?” Saracen asked, stooping down to pull Valkyrie up. She left her bag on the grass.

“Hello, Dusk,” Rover said cheerfully but with that barbed smile Valkyrie had gotten so familiar with. The one he’d borrowed from Anton Shudder. “Still evil, I see. Oh, no, sorry. That’s just your face.”

The man called Dusk glared. “All of _you_ wore thin a century ago.”

“Aw, you’re just saying that because of that time we hung you upside-down and dressed you in nothing but garlic-bunches,” Rover said with a shrug.

“That never happened.”

Rover grinned. “I painted pictures.”

Dusk smiled slowly. “You’re only two this time. It won’t be so easy to get the best of me.” He motioned toward the young couple. “Allow me to introduce my friends.”

Valkyrie ignored what he was saying to look up at Saracen. “Did you really hang him upside-down and dress him in nothing but garlic bunches?” she whispered.

“Erskine can be vindictive,” Saracen whispered back.

He might have said something more, but that was when the young couple attacked. Rover danced away from their clumsy grabs and threw them into each other’s way. Dusk blurred and in an eye-blink he was beside Valkyrie, but when he reached out to seize her arm Saracen was already yanking her away, dragging her along as they ran.

“Can’t you do something?” she demanded.

“Yeah, well.” He looked back at her. “Thing is—I’ve got no combat magic and Dusk’s a _vampire_.”

The young couple were after them. Valkyrie risked a glance and saw how dull and red-rimmed their eyes were. The bites on their necks weren’t the dainty twin pin-pricks she’d seen in the movies—their necks had been savagely torn open.

Behind them, Rover and Dusk were fighting. Rover didn’t fight like any of the other Dead Men. They went right in for the attack. Rover didn’t. He avoided his opponent, dancing around them and leading them on with acrobatic rolls and flips. He’d once told Valkyrie that he’d sparred with Jackie Chan. She still wasn’t sure whether to believe him.

It was enough to keep him away from Dusk, and in the meantime he was keeping Dusk’s attention.

But Saracen and Valkyrie weren’t fast enough. “Oh, hell,” Saracen muttered just before the male of the couple lunged at them. He yanked Valkyrie aside but that made her run into him. He caught her and spun her so he was between her and the couple. The man’s speed carried him further away. The woman snarled and punched and Saracen staggered. Valkyrie ducked out from behind him and deflected a grab, then stepped in to throw her. The woman hit the ground.

But the man was coming back now. Saracen stepped in his way, dodging a punch and delivering one himself, followed by a kick that send the man staggering backwards.

There was a ringing in the air. It was only belatedly that Valkyrie realised the sound was police sirens. “Oh good,” Saracen said. “Your mother is a very scary woman when she gets mad, by the way.”

“She’s good like that.”

Dusk heard the sirens and frowned, standing back. Rover stood back too, waiting without trying to attack. “Want to risk the Guard seeing your little recruitment spree?” Rover asked innocently, nodding toward the couple. “Go ahead. I can put up with giving a statement this morning.”

The vampire gave him a penetrating look. “Minions,” Dusk said before the couple could attack again. They stopped, flanking Saracen and Valkyrie on either side. None of them let down their guard. “We’re leaving.”

The couple snarled their displeasure, but did as they were told. They joined Dusk as he backed away.

“Vengeous has really lost his mojo,” Rover mused, “if he’s going after _our_ pet Valkyrie.”

“Hey!” Valkyrie glared. He just grinned.

“Isn’t she cute when she’s all fired up?”

“The Baron has lost nothing,” said Dusk, “except eighty years of freedom.”

“Double or nothing,” Saracen offered over the sound of the sirens approaching. Dusk smiled but didn’t respond. Valkyrie stood by Saracen’s side and they watched as Dusk and his minions faded into the cover of the trees, just as the Guard’s cars drove up over the curb and pulled to a halt on the grass.


	5. Distractions

Valkyrie didn’t end up having to go to school. Soon after the Guard arrived and piled out of their cars, Valkyrie found herself the centre of attention. Some of the Guard stayed behind at the park, but the rest hustled Valkyrie, Rover and Saracen into one of the cars to take them back to the Edgley’s house. When they arrived, it was to the sound of Dad reassuring the Guard who stayed behind that Stephanie could take very good care of herself, but they’d really rather prefer her back without damage.

Valkyrie had laughed a slightly forced laugh and then didn’t complain when her parents hugged her.

“And you thought self-defence lessons were unnecessary,” Mum said to Beryl as an aside, who was, of course, watching everything like a hawk. Beryl only sniffed.

The statements the Guard received were all basically the same. A man wearing black had tried to force Valkyrie to go with him and she had managed to turn on her phone, calling Rover on speed-dial because she knew perfectly well he’d been in the Army. (He flashed his dogtags right on cue.) When Rover and Saracen arrived they saw her fending off the man and two compatriots, and protected her until all three of the assailants fled when the Guard arrived.

Mum explained to Valkyrie that as soon as Rover had gotten her call and rushed out of the house, Saracen had told them to call the authorities and followed. So she had.

There was no need to go down to one of the stations, but by the time the Guard left Mum said there was no point in going to school for everyone to ogle. Half the other Dead Men had shown up at some point after Beryl and Fergus left. (Beryl had only left reluctantly and because Fergus dragged her out the door.)

Valkyrie could tell that Skulduggery was itching to ask questions she couldn’t answer with the Guard around, just because of the way he hovered. Ghastly very calmly went around making everyone cups of tea and impressing the officers with his build and general air of immovability. And from what Valkyrie could tell, when Rover and Saracen weren’t being interviewed, they were helping Dexter talk Erskine down from doing … something. Valkyrie had never seen Erskine like that before. He kept pacing the living-room and muttering in Irish while scowling out the windows.

Finally the Guard left and everyone settled down in the living-room. Valkyrie sat on the couch with her mother, so Mum could still hold her close, and Dad sat in the nearest armchair. Skulduggery and Erskine didn’t sit, but the others settled down in chairs around the room.

“What happened?” Skulduggery asked at last. He was still wearing his disguise. Mum had only seen him once without it, but she still had a tendency to stare even while he was all covered up.

Valkyrie told them how Dusk had come out of the thicket, how she’d rung Rover and how Dusk had told her to go with him, and the orders from the Baron. Rover and Saracen filled in the other details.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Valkyrie said. “What happened to the other two? They acted like vampires do at night, except a lot slower, but they still had their skin.”

She noticed Saracen sneak a look at Erskine before anyone answered.

“They were infected,” Skulduggery began, but then Erskine interrupted. His face was set, his tone very flat.

“When vampires bite their victims they don’t turn right away,” he said, staring through the window into the yard. “It takes two nights for an Infected to become a vampire. Until then they’re innocent victims. Innocent, but mindless and completely under the thrall of the vampire who bit them. They can’t think and all they can feel is hunger and the need to obey.”

Valkyrie stared. So did her mother and father. He turned and saw their expressions, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the same smile Dexter had worn last year when he told Valkyrie about the time he’d almost lost his hands blocking Serpine’s point-and-kill spell. Erskine pulled down his collar. “Look.”

It took a little while for Valkyrie to see the scar because it was so faded, but eventually she did: two tiny ragged holes. “You were Infected?”

“A long time ago,” said Erskine, straightening his shirt again, “when I was twenty-three. It was my introduction to the world of magic. I was only Infected for about ten minutes before Corrival saved me, but it was ten minutes too long.”

“But there’s a cure,” said Mum, sounding relieved. Erskine nodded and managed to crack a smile.

“A better one now than there was back then, too, believe me.”

“No wonder you hate vampires so much,” Valkyrie murmured.

Erskine shrugged uncomfortably. “Oh, you know how it is. We’ve all got something to hate. Vampires, queues, vicious shrubbery.”

“Clowns,” Saracen said promptly.

“Are you saying you hate me, Saracen?” Rover demanded. “Are you saying I’m worthy of being hated?”

“How do I answer this question?” Saracen asked Dexter.

“Don’t. Distract him.”

“How?”

Dexter lifted an eyebrow. “If you need advice to do that, Saracen, then I don’t think _you’re_ worthy of being _either_ of our lovers.”

“I agree,” Rover said. “He said he hated me. I think we should excommunicate him from this marriage.”

“We could always give him to Erskine,” Dexter suggested.

“I see how it is,” Erskine grumbled. “I get all your cast-offs.” But he was smiling now, and genuinely.

“If you’re all quite finished with your verbal foursome,” said Skulduggery, “we have things to discuss. Such as why the Baron is after Valkyrie.”

“A distraction?” Ghastly asked. “Serpine did the same thing with the Sceptre last year.”

“Or a death-wish,” Rover added darkly. “No one tries to kidnap _our_ pets and gets away with it.”

“I’m not your pet,” Valkyrie grumbled.

“Calm down, now.” Rover patted her head like she was a dog, and she shook it to throw off his hand.

“Using someone precious to lure us into a trap isn’t like the Baron,” Skulduggery said. “It’s Serpine’s taste. A distraction is more likely. The question is whether he wants to distract us from his presence in Ireland, or what he intends to do here.”

“Or both,” Dexter put in.

“Or both,” Skulduggery added.

“What _is_ he planning?” Valkyrie asked. The Dead Men exchanged glances. Valkyrie frowned. “Come on. There’s no harm in me knowing, right? It’s not like you’ve refused to give out details in an ongoing case before.”

They looked at her parents. Her parents looked at each other. Dad shrugged. Mum sighed. “Forewarned is forearmed, I suppose. Seeing as he’s taken an interest already.”

Skulduggery nodded. “The Baron,” he said, “intends to use a magical item belonging to an extremely powerful and insane necromancer to resurrect something called the Grotesquery.”

“A whatery?”

“The Grotesquery,” Dexter repeated. “It’s a chimera, but mostly it’s made up of a Faceless One.”

Valkyrie stared. “One of those evil gods? Like … an _actual_ one?”

“According to China, sometime during the war Vengeous was ordered to try and retrieve one of the Faceless Ones. Bringing a live one into our reality proved too much, but he managed to retrieve a corpse, and was then forced to patch it together with a number of other creatures.”

“It’s supposed to be able to open a portal between our universe and theirs,” Erskine explained, “when the sun, moon and Earth are all in proper alignment.”

“When’s that going to happen?”

“Tomorrow night,” Saracen said a lot more cheerfully than Valkyrie felt was right.

“I take it back,” said Mum. “I don’t want to know.” She was pale. So was Dad.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Ghastly said gently.

“Are you sure?” Dad asked. “You don’t have a time-wand or anything like that?”

“Only if you want to go back to Dallas, November twenty-second,” Rover told him.

Dad gave him an odd look that was a mixture of disbelief and glee. “You know, you’re the first person I know who’s recognised that reference.”

“I’m just naturally gifted in trivia,” Rover said with a shrug and a smirk.

“Not to mention other things,” Skulduggery muttered.

“If you wanted some rumours confirmed, dead man, all you had to do was ask.”

“I have all the rumours I need confirmed already,” Skulduggery said, “though I’ve noticed the ones about your ability to focus have been greatly exaggerated.”

“That depends on what you want me to focus _on_.”

“How about the case?”

“Of what? Bourbon? Whiskey?”

“Whiskey,” Dad murmured. “I’d like some whiskey.”

“Dexter,” Skulduggery said, levelling an empty stare at Rover, “hit Rover for me.”

“With pleasure. Can you give me a moment while I get my riding-crop?”

Valkyrie and her mother were giggling madly. Skulduggery sighed and said to Ghastly, “I think I’m beginning to understand how Fergus feels.”

“Try not to go there, if you can,” Ghastly advised, but he was grinning too.

Dad nodded. “I only need one Fergus in my family. What’s the plan? How are we keeping Steph safe?”

Skulduggery tilted his head thoughtfully. “I think she should go to school.”

“What?” Valkyrie blurted. “If I can’t skip school after being mugged by a _vampire_ , when can I skip it?”

“When you die?” Saracen suggested. Valkyrie glared and he shrugged. “Well, it worked for Skulduggery.”

“Skulduggery is a skeleton,” Valkyrie said slowly.

“He is, isn’t he?”

“Will that be safe?” Mum asked, ignoring them both. “What about the other students?”

“Dusk said he followed us from the Sanctuary,” said Skulduggery, “which means he’s probably lying in wait to follow her again now, to see what we do.”

“So you think I should go to _school_?” Valkyrie demanded.

“No, I think your _reflection_ should go to school,” Skulduggery corrected. “Dusk won’t dare to make a scene with the other students around, and he won’t recognise your reflection as a reflection unless he gets close. With luck it will distract him until after school ends.”

Valkyrie immediately perked up. “Oh. Okay then. Where should I go?”

“Dusk will see you if you stay here,” Ghastly pointed out, “but before Saracen called we had planned to meet up with Tanith at China’s library to do some research. If your parents say so, you could come with us.”

Dad frowned. Valkyrie didn’t look right at him, but she could guess what he was thinking. He really didn’t like China, or Valkyrie going to see China. He hadn’t been the only one affected by her magic the first time. “What about _Gordon’s_ library?” he asked. “Wouldn’t he have information on this doozy-whatsit?”

There was an awkward pause. Erskine looked down at the carpet, Rover up at the ceiling, Saracen out the window. Dexter and Ghastly exchanged glances. Valkyrie was about to ask what they had against Gordon’s house, because they had avoided it since the year before and only seemed willing to go there to investigate Gordon’s death, when Skulduggery nodded. “That’s also plausible. Why don’t you take the lead on that, Valkyrie? You can take Rover and Saracen, since they did so well protecting you this morning.”

“I don’t want to go with _him_ ,” Rover protested, pointing. “He hates me!”

Saracen threw up his hands. “It’s the make-up! I can’t stand the make-up! You’re not wearing make-up now, are you?” He squinted at Rover. “Are you?”

“No,” Rover admitted, and grinned wickedly. “But I could be, if you like.”

“I _don’t_ like. I demand to go with Ghastly. Ghastly, I’m going with you.”

“You can’t,” Ghastly pointed out. “If Dex goes with Rover they’ll wind up distracting each other and then Valkyrie will be snatched out from under their noses. You have to go with Rover to be the responsible one.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“I think I should be insulted,” Dexter muttered. “Are you saying I can’t be responsible, Bespoke? Besides, what if I want to go with Skulduggery on his secret mission?”

“That’s _my_ secret mission,” Erskine protested.

“Are you sure you want Dex to go visit China?” Valkyrie asked innocently.

The Dead Men looked at each other. “She has a point,” Ghastly agreed, looking at Dex. “And about Saracen too. Women tend to just fall into his arms. I think we’d be safest if you came with me, Erskine.”

“Over my dead body, maybe. Or at least my unconscious body.”

“Or I can go with you and pull all the right books out of the right places,” Saracen told Ghastly, “and cut all your search-time in half.”

“Now _he_ has a point,” Skulduggery said, and then fixed Saracen with an invisible, but Valkyrie imagined stern, glance. “But only if it works out that way, instead of China falling into your arms.”

Dexter laughed. “I’d pay money if even Saracen can make that happen.”

“At least he could distract her from asking too many questions,” Erskine concluded, and turned to Valkyrie. “It’s up to you to keep those two lovebirds on the straight and narrow, Valkyrie. Think you’re up to it?”

“Being in lead means I’m in charge, right?” Valkyrie asked, and then grinned. “I’m up to it.”

“That’s my girl,” Mum murmured with a tiny smile, patting her head. “Bossing around the men in her life. Keep ’em on their leashes, tiger.”

“That’s the plan, Mum.”

“Just make sure you wear your bullet-proof clothes.”

“That’s also the plan, Mum.” Valkyrie let her mother give her a last squeeze and got up to go to her room.

“And don’t forget to take off your jumper before you summon the reflection,” her mother called up.

“I’ve got it, Mum!” Valkyrie shouted, but she grinned as she went into her room. This day was looking up.


	6. Unwelcome visitors

At first Erskine hoped they managed to avoid Valkyrie asking about the ‘secret mission’, but then after she came downstairs she’d looked at them and made them promise to tell her what that was all about later. What were they meant to say? She was a very stubborn girl. A lot like Skulduggery in some ways, actually. Erskine was fairly sure that was one of the reasons the Dead Men had somehow wound up adopting her.

At least she seemed to forget about asking after Gordon’s house. That was a conversation none of them wanted to have. True, none of them had stopped Gordon from buying the place, but as Corrival said—just because a mortal could make something else of it didn’t mean any of them had to like revisiting it. Not even Gordon had known just why they tended to prefer meeting in pubs and hotels over his ‘fanciful’ mansion.

“Why _is_ Vengeous after Valkyrie?” Erskine asked, stretching back in the passenger seat and watching the streets pass by.

“Were you there for our conversation, Erskine?” Skulduggery asked.

Erskine shrugged. “I figured there was something you weren’t saying in front of her parents.”

“Besides the obvious? In this case, no,” Skulduggery admitted, “but it is strange. The Baron does nothing without reason, and even he would think twice about stealing something all of us would come after.”

“Maybe he _is_ borrowing a page from Serpine’s book.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later. How’s Corrival?”

“Still grumbling about all the people pestering him about becoming an Elder,” Erskine said with a grin. “He says he doesn’t have enough time to finish his crossword puzzles. I told him he can’t expect anything else, after helping Morwenna save the Sanctuary last year.”

“It would have solved a lot of problems if he’d said yes,” Skulduggery pointed out, pulling up at the Sanctuary’s back entrance. “The one we’re facing, for instance.”

“Guild as a traitor.” Erskine shook his head as he got out of the Bentley. “I can’t say I see it, Skulduggery.”

“It’s where the evidence is pointing.” Skulduggery followed him, pulling off his disguise as they came inside and out of mortal sight.

“So it’s worth warning Morwenna about. Why do we have to sneak into Guild’s office?”

“I need something fun to do with my time.”

“Are you saying we’re not enough fun for you?”

“I’m getting jealous of being left out of all the orgies,” Skulduggery said, completely deadpan, as they passed one of the Sanctuary’s employees. The woman jumped and looked at the skeleton with wide eyes, and after that Erskine found it extremely difficult to laugh and walk at the same time.

They reached Guild’s office, tested the air under the door to make sure it was empty, and waited for the hallway to clear. Skulduggery was about to pick the lock when he paused. His head turned slightly to the side. “Do you hear that?”

“You mean Guild yelling up a storm? No.”

Skulduggery straightened and together they moved down the hall to the Grand Mage’s office. The door was closed, but this close they could hear Guild’s raised voice through it.

“—ridiculous! We need strong leadership, someone sorcerers will respect, not a … a mute beastspeaker people barely remember exist!”

Erskine and Skulduggery exchanged glances, and Erskine opened the door. Guild spun around. He’d been leaning on Morwenna’s desk, trying to intimidate her from the opposite side. Hopeless was sitting in one of the nearest armchairs, but he was already looking toward the door, smiling wryly. “Oh, hello,” Erskine said. “We heard some screeching and thought a pig might be being murdered. We had to investigate.”

“It’s what we do,” Skulduggery agreed, taking off his hat. “Good morning, Elder Guild. Grand Mage. Descry. What are you doing here?”

The skeleton said it in the sort of blandly leading tone which said he knew perfectly well, but wasn’t going to mention it himself. What _was_ Hopeless doing there? Erskine wondered. It couldn’t be—no. Surely not. Hopeless disliked being in the spotlight. And yet …

The thought made Erskine’s gut clench and chest balloon at once.

The wry smile became more pronounced. Guild stiffened and his eyes narrowed, and he ground out, “If you can’t manage respect, Ravel, I can always have you removed from the Sanctuary.”

Morwenna sighed. “Thurid, please sit down. I’ve made my choice, and that’s what the choice is: mine.”

Guild glared at her, remembered who he was talking to, and tried to tone the expression down. It looked like he was swallowing a basketful of lemons. “Grand Mage, I beg you to reconsider. Bliss has long been a trusted envoy of the Sanctuary and a respected sorcerer. He would do well as the second Elder.”

“Bliss has stated himself that he would be more useful _as_ an envoy,” Morwenna said simply. “And Hopeless has been a trusted confidant of the previous Council since its inception.”

“He’s mute!”

“We can have a translator, if that worries you so much.”

“After last year, do you really think it’s wise to have an Elder with no magical combat skills whatsoever? He can’t even teleport away from danger like Tome could, for God’s sake!”

“That’s what the Cleavers are for,” Morwenna pointed out.

“Descry is becoming an Elder?” Erskine said wonderingly, staring.

Hopeless shrugged and signed, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’

Guild glared at them both, breathing hard in his anger. Morwenna rose and leaned on her desk with her fists in exactly the same manner Guild had been doing not long before. “Thurid, it comes down to this. Hopeless was Eachan’s most trusted confidant for centuries. There are people he knows, things he knows, which no one else does. Whatever his magic, his _knowledge_ is invaluable.”

She spoke mildly but firmly, and Guild stiffened, shooting Hopeless another look. This one, Erskine noted with interest, was significantly less angry and significantly warier. Hopeless steepled his fingers before him, elbows on the armrests, and lifted one eyebrow.

“I … see,” Guild said slowly. His eyes narrowed. “I shall make an announcement. Grand Mage. Hopeless.” He nodded stiffly at them and swept out of the office without offering Skulduggery and Erskine a glance.

“You’re making friends, I see,” Skulduggery observed to Morwenna. She sighed and sat back down again.

“More now,” she agreed, shooting Hopeless a smile.

“Keep up with the good work,” Skulduggery said, placing his hat on his skull. “In the meantime, I will be right back.”

Erskine groaned. “Skulduggery, come on. Guild, a traitor? If he were, Hopeless would know.”

“If he were, the Grand Mage’s threat just now would spur him to taking measures to make sure Hopeless _didn’t_ know,” Skulduggery said, closing the door so no one could hear the conversation. “Which means I should follow him post-haste and hope to catch him in the act.”

Morwenna’s eyebrows had risen. “Thurid, a traitor? Wherever did you get that idea?”

“Because Sanguine had inside knowledge into the Russians’ prison system,” Erskine said with a roll of his eyes, “and you’ve had Guild doing a lot of the talking with other countries.”

“He’s had opportunity,” Skulduggery said. “And it only happened soon after Guild’s election to office.” Erskine threw up his hands and turned to Hopeless.

“Can’t you talk some sense into him? Guild’s not a traitor, right?”

Hopeless hesitated. That wasn’t uncommon in itself. Hopeless often paused before answering, to navigate the minefield of secrets and memories and choose his words carefully. There was something strange about this pause, though. If it wasn’t Hopeless, Erskine would have thought it was unsure. ‘Guild isn’t a traitor.’

“Are you certain?” Skulduggery asked. Erskine stared at him.

“ _Is he certain_? This is Hopeless. Skulduggery, what’s wrong with you?”

“Are you certain?” Skulduggery repeated, his eyeless sockets pointed firmly in Hopeless’s direction. Erskine followed his gaze and saw Hopeless hesitate again, then drop his gaze to his hands on his lap. The action made a chill run down Erskine’s back.

“Descry?” he asked uncertainly.

Skulduggery nodded. “I thought so.”

“What’s going on?” Morwenna demanded.

“Hopeless doesn’t know if Guild is a traitor,” Skulduggery said, “because he can’t read his mind.”

Morwenna blinked. “That’s impossible.”

She looked at Hopeless, but the mind-reader didn’t look up. The tips of his ears were going red but his face was pale in that combination of shame and embarrassment which Erskine only saw when Hopeless had been hiding something he knew he shouldn’t, and did anyway, because it was an emotion he could be perfectly certain belonged to him and no one else. No matter how crippling that emotion was.

“It’s not his fault,” Skulduggery told her, still looking at Hopeless. “He wore Serpine’s thoughts for _hours_. Believing you’re Serpine would turn anyone’s head. But it’s been a problem since then, hasn’t it?”

Hopeless nodded, still looking down at his hands, his fingers intertwined. He never used to do that, Erskine realised with a jolt. He did now, though. Like he was reassuring himself he still _had_ all his fingers.

“It’s a mental block,” Skulduggery continued, “not a magical one. He’s afraid. When he tries to read someone’s mind, he panics and backs out.”

“That’s not right,” Erskine said, finding his voice at last. “He’s read my mind, and Dexter’s, and all the others’, a million times in the last year.”

His voice was croaky, but he couldn’t help it. His heart pounded. The fact that Hopeless would borrow Serpine’s mind like that—they had all understood why, after what happened last time he’d been in the middle of evil with no anchor. But the idea that Hopeless wouldn’t be able to read his mind anymore filled Erskine with an abrupt and sharp sense of loneliness.Hopeless raised his head to look at him, and his eyes were reassuring, reassuring enough that Erskine slumped suddenly with relief.

“Yes,” Skulduggery agreed, “and you’re probably the only ones he can read without trouble. We’re his friends. We rescued him.”

“Is this true?” Morwenna asked Hopeless, her brow crinkled. “Is that why you were asking me for more details when I asked you to become an Elder?” Now the flush extended down to his face, but Hopeless nodded again, just once and slowly. Morwenna’s frown deepened. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

Hopeless raised his hands, half as if to shrug and half as if in preparation to sign something, but then he dropped them again and looked up at Skulduggery. Erskine took a step back and tried to think of something more useful than just the spinning medleys of shock and tight, undercurrent anger _._ None of that was very helpful to Hopeless right now.

“Because Descry has this frustrating habit of thinking people won’t find him useful without his magic,” Skulduggery said with a sigh. Hopeless snorted.

Morwenna nodded. “I see.”

Hopeless got to his feet. ‘I’ll go stop Guild from making that announcement.’

Morwenna rose almost in the same moment, her gaze still on him. “You’ll do no such thing,” she ordered. “Hopeless, I won’t lie and say I wasn’t hoping your mind-reading would be useful to me, but I meant what I said to Guild about your knowledge being invaluable. You don’t need to mind-read to be a good Elder. You already know ten times as much as anyone else in the Sanctuary.”

“Including Skulduggery,” Erskine added, mustering a smirk. Skulduggery tilted his head in Erskine’s direction in a disgruntled manner.

The tension ran out of Hopeless’s shoulders and he relaxed and gave her a small smile, the kind that crinkled his eyes with gratitude. Erskine shook his head, stealing Skulduggery’s hat and striding over to whack Hopeless’s shoulder with it. “And you weren’t going to tell anyone. If you haven’t read it out of his head, why don’t you think Guild is a traitor?” He clapped Hopeless on the back, his voice softening. “I can’t believe I just asked you, of all people, that.”

‘Because character matters,’ Hopeless signed, looking toward Skulduggery as the skeleton snatched his hat from Erskine. ‘Guild is a man of principle, so he wouldn’t betray Ireland for money. And because he is a man of principle, he wouldn’t betray Ireland for the faith of the Faceless Ones, which he spent so long fighting.’

“Maybe he’s converted,” Skulduggery said, but even he sounded a bit doubtful now, peering down at his hat to make sure it was alright before setting it just-so on his skull. Hopeless shook his head, smiling. “How sure are you that it isn’t Guild?”

‘Sure enough to suggest you investigate others first and leave Guild to me.’

“What others?” Skulduggery grumbled, but his stance shifted and Erskine knew that any suggestions about breaking into Guild’s office were on the backburner unless something else happened to implicate him.

Hopeless shrugged. ‘That’s your job. I just give the orders.’

“Orders from Hopeless,” Erskine mused, and shook his head. “I don’t think much has changed at all.” He squeezed the mind-reader’s shoulder. “In the meantime, let’s give you an update.”

“Yes, please do,” Morwenna said dryly, taking her seat again.

“Well, the Baron sent Dusk to kidnap Valkyrie, we put her in charge of making Rover and Dexter search Gordon’s books, and sent Saracen to seduce China into telling us more about the Grotesquery …”

 

‘Can I have today returned?’ Saracen signed in Ghastly’s direction. Ghastly shot him a look.

‘No. Listen.’

‘I don’t want to listen. He’s plotting to kill people. Like me.’

‘Do you really want Skulduggery to hear we had the chance for valuable intel and ignored it?’

‘Not really, no. So, can I have today returned?’

Ghastly shook his head, managed a smile in spite of himself, and went back to listening to Vengeous talk around the corner of the bookcase. Well, talk and try to beat the truth out of China. He should have known better than to try within her own domain; he’d already been bombarded with a case full of books of which China apparently didn’t think too highly. He wanted to know where Valkyrie was and China was doing an admirable job of putting him off, especially given that she actually didn’t know. Ghastly and Saracen knew better than to tell her, and chose not to get in her way or tip their hand with the fact they were present.

They were, however, putting their newly-learned skills in hand-signing to good use. Or at least Saracen was.

‘This isn’t fair. I wasn’t even the one who insulted him. It was Dexter dressed as me. I didn’t even exist yet.’

‘Look at it this way,’ Ghastly returned. ‘Unless he finds out you’re here or in Ireland at all, he’s not going to come after you until he can complete his dastardly plot first. He’s single-minded like that.’

‘So as long as I abandon the rest of you to take care of him on your own, I’ll be fine? Not sure I can do that. You’d be lost without me. You’d fall off a cliff.’

‘That only almost happened once.’ The final word was punctured with an especially sharp gesture.

‘“Almost”? You broke three bones.’

‘I didn’t hear you shouting.’

‘BV was on the other side of the ridge!’

‘That’s no excuse. Be louder with your warnings.’

‘Like this?’

“Dusk and Sanguine are walking down the hall to the library!” Saracen shouted without poking his head out anywhere Vengeous might be able to see him. “Just thought you’d like to know!”

There was a pause. Then China’s voice came floating back from the main area of the library, the part least blocked off by shelves and cases. “Thank you, Saracen.”

Ghastly lifted an eyebrow. Saracen winced. “She said my name. She _had_ to say my name?”

“Rue,” Vengeous growled. Saracen yelped and scrambled back around the bookcase just as Vengeous shoved the pot-plant aside and strode through the opening between cases. There was a cut on his head.

“Hello, Baron,” Ghastly said pleasantly, and then hurled a handful of fire into his face. Vengeous pulled back very quickly and the fireball went sailing down the aisle and collided with the far wall.

“Please do try _not_ to burn down my library, Ghastly,” China called.

“I’ll do my best, China, but I make no promises.”

She sighed. “Sacrifices must be made, I suppose.”

“I can make the sacrifices worth your while,” Saracen offered, poking his head out from behind his newest bit of cover. “By the way, Ghastly, Sanguine: right there.” He pointed at the wall. Ghastly whirled and punched and a man in brown leather boots barely stepped out of the wall before he slammed back into it.

“What the hell!” he yelped, and the wall closed over him before Ghastly could hit him again.

“Thank you, Saracen.”

“You’re welcome. Excuse me.” Saracen picked up a very heavy book from the table where they’d been sitting and swung it hard through the air. It collided with Dusk as the vampire appeared beside him and sent Dusk staggering back, but then he vanished and reappeared on top of the bookcase with a snarl.

“I am getting very tired of you.”

“Trust me,” Ghastly told him, “you’re not the first to think so.”

Saracen frowned. “Hey. I thought you _liked_ me.”

“When did I ever say that?”

“You’re a cruel man, Bespoke.”

Dusk lunged. Saracen jumped back, Ghastly stepped forward, and the vampire met with the tailor’s fist. Dusk reeled and fled back to the top of the bookcase, eyeing them warily. Ghastly smiled up at him and waved. Saracen’s methods of battle may be unorthodox, but they were extremely effective.

“Do you think we should help China?” Saracen wondered. Ghastly listened to the sound of books thudding and paper whipping through the air, and Vengeous’s roar of frustration, and then shook his head.

“I think she’s got it covered.”

“ _I_ think we should call reinforcements,” Saracen decided, stepping back and dragging a chair laden with books to a very specific place on the floor. Sanguine’s head erupted out of the carpet, looked up, and he stopped just short of knocking himself silly. He scowled and sank back into the floor.

“This is a _joke_ ,” he muttered just before his mouth vanished.

“We’re the Dead Men,” Saracen shouted at the crack in the floor. “Of course we joke! Ghastly—” He leapt forward and yanked Ghastly down the aisle as the bookcase next to them exploded outward. It groaned and toppled into the next one over, bits of wood and paper fluttering everywhere.

“China’s not going to be happy about that,” Ghastly muttered, picking himself up.

“Dusk,” was Saracen’s answer, and Ghastly whirled in time to have the vampire’s fist meet his face. Ghastly staggered, twisted to avoid another strike, and grabbed a book out of the shelf and brought it down hard on Dusk’s arm. Dusk howled with pain and pulled back, but Sanguine burst out of the floor and seized Ghastly’s ankles. He would have been dragged down, except that Saracen bent and used a book like he was playing Whack a Mole.

“What kind of—” Sanguine vanished into the floor and then popped up again a foot away. “—sorcerers are you?!” He yanked his head down just before the book thudded to the floor.

“Stop _moving_ ,” Saracen complained, raising the book again.

“What happened to calling those reinforcements?” Ghastly demanded, deflecting Dusk’s fist and stepping in to try and throw him, but the vampire slid easily out from his grasp.

Saracen’s response came between grunts while he tried to hit Sanguine on the head with the book, while Sanguine popped up in a circle around him. “By all means, Bespoke, if you think we _need_ the help …”

“Did someone call for help?” Tanith asked, and Sanguine turned and received her heel smashing into his face. He yelped and pulled back into the floor, and didn’t appear again.

“I did! Pick me!” Saracen held up the book instead of his hand, then turned and threw it at Dusk. The vampire dodged, slid under Ghastly’s fist, and hissed as Tanith’s sword sliced into his shoulder. He lashed out at her but she stepped back and Ghastly stepped in, driving the vampire back with a series of hard punches which didn’t connect, but didn’t have to. Sanguine reached out of the wall, the opposite wall to where they’d begun, and dragged Dusk back in with him. The last thing they saw was the vampire glaring.

For a moment there was a pause. They looked at each other and Ghastly and Tanith didn’t need Saracen’s prompting. Tanith stepped up onto the nearest case and flipped over the top, and Ghastly and Saracen turned and ran toward the aisle between the shelves. They were in time to see China tap a sigil which hurled Dusk across the room and Sanguine take Vengeous into the floor from the middle of a glowing circle.

“Ghastly, throw this there.” Saracen pointed at a pot-plant and then at the wall just down from China. Ghastly picked up the plant with a grunt and hurled it precisely where Saracen had indicated, trailing dirt everywhere. China saw the pot-plant coming and moved quickly to the side. Sanguine and Vengeous stepped out of the wall. Sanguine yelped and threw himself back and the wall swallowed him up, but Vengeous took the pot-plant head-on. It shattered with an explosion of soil and ceramic and the wall shuddered as the Baron was shoved back. Ghastly was sure he saw it crack, behind the dust.

Tanith was engaging Dusk. The vampire was faster, but Tanith wasn’t limited to the floor, using the space in all dimensions to counter his speed. Her sword rang. Ghastly decided she could handle herself and took a step toward Vengeous. The Baron straightened, shaking off dirt and debris, and his eyes flashed. “ _Rue_.”

Saracen paled and Ghastly shoved him behind a bookcase, breaking Vengeous’s line of sight. Saracen stumbled and caught himself on the case, his face twisted with pain. Ghastly picked up a table and threw it, but Vengeous’s eyes flashed again and the table exploded into shards of wood in mid-air.

But China was tapping one of the symbols on the wall, and the part behind Vengeous morphed and hands shot out of it, wrapping around him and pulling him back. The Baron snarled and the hands ruptured.

“Tanith,” Saracen gasped out, but he was too late. Sanguine’s hands burst out of the ceiling and shoved, and Tanith fell. She cartwheeled and managed to avoid impaling herself on her sword, but Ghastly could tell from the way she hit the floor and grit her teeth that she’d landed badly.

“Stay back,” Ghastly ordered Saracen, worried about the green tinge to his face and his raspy breathing, and shoved at the air. It slammed into Dusk before he could reach Tanith. She got to her feet and adjusted her grip on her sword, limping but face set with determination.

The door flew open and Bliss strode in. He looked around and lifted an eyebrow. “Need a hand, sister?”

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” said China tersely, “but you may help Tanith or Saracen, if you like.”

“I’m good,” Tanith answered, standing at the ready with her gaze on Dusk.

“How ’bout you, Saracen?” Erskine asked, coming in behind Bliss. Skulduggery came in last and the pair fanned out, flanking Bliss and blocking the exit.

“Sure,” Saracen said weakly. “I enjoy having my lungs rupture.” His breath gurgled alarmingly. Ghastly threw a worried glance his way, but Erskine flapped a hand and went to Saracen. Ghastly looked forward.

He saw Vengeous hesitate and his eyes narrow. “We’re leaving,” said the Baron. “Sanguine.”

“Right you are.” Sanguine emerged beside him, doffed his hat at Tanith, scowled at Saracen, and led the Baron into the wall. A moment later Sanguine’s arm snaked and grabbed Dusk too, and they were gone.


	7. Casual conversations

According to China, Dusk had cottoned on quickly to the fact that it was Valkyrie’s reflection, not Valkyrie herself, who had wound up in school. When he reported back Vengeous had decided the best way to find out where she might be and what the Dead Men might be planning was to go directly to China.

“My reputation, apparently, has lost nothing over the years,” was how she ended. Obviously, she had told him she didn’t have the faintest idea where Valkyrie might be, but he hadn’t believed her.

“I wonder why?” Erskine had said scathingly.

Ultimately the Baron’s visit yielded nothing new, except for the fact that he was fixated on Valkyrie. Ghastly had called Dexter after they took Saracen to Kenspeckle. For the first five minutes all Dexter did was complain about how Valkyrie wouldn’t let them read more of Gordon’s last book, but then he finally tossed out the minor bombshell that Valkyrie had found a secret room attached to the office and, inside there, an Echo Stone containing Gordon’s memories.

“He wasn’t sure if he wanted any of you to know at first,” Dexter said, “but then he realised that Hopeless was going to know anyway and Rover can’t keep a secret from any of you to save his life.”

“And Larrikin is the most annoying man on the face of the planet!” Echo-Gordon hollered distantly.

Underneath that, Ghastly could just barely hear Rover squawking, “Me? Annoying?! All I did was point out the flaws in your plan! Like how boring life gets when we’re not around and that I’d _obviously_ have to come visit you when you’re all alone with no one here beside you, and—”

Ghastly grinned. Rover was awfully good at helping people past existential crises. Mostly by being annoying. “Does he know anything?”

“He gave us a laundry list,” Dexter said. “We’re writing it down. By the way, you would not _believe_ some of the things he’s got hidden in this room. I think China would give her left arm for them. Or someone else’s.”

“How did he react to Valkyrie knowing about magic?”

“I think he wants you all to visit so he can either yell or congratulate us all at once. He was even less happy when—hey. Gordon. Don’t put your hand through my arm. Do you know how rude it is to put your hand through someone’s arm?”

Valkyrie was laughing. Ghastly discreetly put the phone on speaker. Echo-Gordon sounded disconcerted as he said, “Yes, well, you were ignoring my mimes to give me the phone.”

“You’re dead. I can’t give you the phone.”

“That never stopped Skulduggery,” Rover chirruped helpfully.

“Exactly!”

“Skulduggery’s a skeleton,” Dexter pointed out. “He, at least, still has hands.”

“I have hands!”

“Hands that can actually _grip_ things. Face it, Gordon, you’re a ghost.”

There was a momentary beat of silence. Ghastly met Tanith’s gaze over the phone and winked. She had pressed a fist against her mouth and her shoulders were shaking madly.

“Now you’ve hurt my feelings, Vex,” Echo-Gordon said in a tremulous voice.

“How dare you hurt the ghost’s feelings, Dex,” Rover scolded. “You bad man, you.”

“And you’re much better?” Dexter demanded.

Echo-Gordon huffed. “If you weren’t all such good friends, I’d refuse to help you save the world. Ghastly, can you hear me?”

“We can _all_ hear you,” Kenspeckle said grumpily, glaring at Saracen. “We can all hear you and you’re making it difficult for my patient to not laugh. Bespoke, turn that blasted thing off.”

“I’ll live,” Saracen wheezed.

“Saracen? What’s wrong?” Now it was Rover on the line again, and he sounded worried. “Bespoke, have you been misusing my lover?”

“We had a bit of trouble,” Ghastly said delicately.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The Baron decided to pay China a visit while we were there. We came out on top, but Saracen wound up with a ruptured lung. How are you, Gordon?”

“Suddenly relieved my death was apparently a quick one,” Echo-Gordon said. “What’s this I hear about my brother and sister-in-law being in on the secret?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Valkyrie protested.

“Not it either,” Rover said quickly. “It was Fergus. Fergus told him. It’s all Fergus’s fault.”

“It was Fergus,” Valkyrie agreed.

“Of course,” Erskine said. “And not in the least because you wanted to leap head-first into mortal danger and he was trying to protect you.”

“He didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“I don’t recall him telling Serpine to attack the Sanctuary right when you were there,” Dexter pointed out.

“No, but he did tell Dad where the Sanctuary was so he came to find me right when _Serpine_ was there.”

Echo-Gordon yelped. “I’m not sure I want to know anymore. No, wait, you’d better tell me. But—and I realise this may be a tall order, given how bad you lot are at keeping secrets—I’d really rather you didn’t tell Fergus and Desmond about, er, me. For the moment.”

“We’ll do our best,” Ghastly promised. “Did Valkyrie tell you about Baron Vengeous yet?”

“Oh, yes. I’m writing a list of things that are sewn into the Grotesquery. Well, Stephanie’s writing a list for me, but there will be a list. Have you found it yet?”

“We haven’t the faintest idea where to start looking,” Skulduggery said.

“And you’re admitting it? Oh dear. You should ask the Torment, then.”

“Who?” Valkyrie asked.

“I thought he was dead,” said Dexter.

“A few years ago I heard a rumour that a man called the Torment might know where the Grotesquery was hidden. Actually, I was doing some research for a book which included Roarhaven, and—”

“We’ll do that,” Skulduggery interrupted. “Thank you, Gordon.”

“You’re welcome. What about you? Have any news?”

“Hopeless has said yes to being the second Elder,” Erskine said. He grinned as he said it, but he looked pale. Saracen choked, coughed, and Kenspeckle had to grab for his shoulders before he curled in on himself.

“Will you stop surprising my patient!?” he roared at Erskine, who shrugged apologetically.

“You didn’t mention this,” Ghastly said, staring.

“We were a little occupied with dragging you out of the ruins of China’s library,” Skulduggery pointed out.

“That’s no excuse.”

Rover was cackling madly over the phone. “You worry me,” they heard Valkyrie say.

“Of course he does,” Dexter said. “He’s very worrying. Hopeless as an Elder? This will be interesting. How did Guild react?”

“Squealed like a stuck pig,” Erskine told him. Rover laughed.

“Been there. Done that. Where’s the Torment, then? Roarhaven?”

“He used to live in Roarhaven,” Skulduggery said, “but where he is now, I wouldn’t have a clue.”

“But we know who might,” Dexter added. “Scapegrace?”

“Scapegrace,” Skulduggery agreed. He turned to Saracen. “Unless, of course, the professor’s patient has any idea?” Saracen flapped a hand at them, his lips moving silently, and then he managed a weak grin. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

“Need some help convincing Scapegrace to give it up?”

“Of course not. You can, however, meet me there to pull your fair share of _our_ job.”

“I knew it. All that confidence is really just a front. You can’t do anything without me. Want to come see what real detective-work is like, Tanith?”

“Sure, why not,” Tanith said. “I can take notes in what not to do. What about Valkyrie? If the Baron is after her, we can’t leave her alone.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Rover protested.

“Or something thereabouts,” Ghastly said. He exhaled slowly. “Gordon’s estate. The Baron won’t expect us to take anyone there for protection. I can go out and meet them there. We can ring the Edgleys to let them know.” He looked at Tanith. “Want to come join us once Dexter’s finished trying to seduce you? I’m going to need someone to help me keep the kids in line.”

“ _Trying_?” Dexter demanded.

“Hey,” Valkyrie grumbled.

Both their objections were covered by Rover’s gleeful reply. “Slumber party! Don’t forget to bring my jammies, Dad. That reminds me; I’d better ring Anton and let him know we won’t be coming home tonight. Maybe invite him to join us. Wouldn’t want him to get lonely or anything.”

Erskine patted Saracen’s head. “Meanwhile, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on our friend here, just in case the Baron decides to wreak vengeance on the dastardly fop who sullied his good name.”

“I hate you,” Saracen whispered.

“Stop talking,” Kenspeckle ordered.

“Yessir.”

“ _Stop. Talking._ ”

“See you later,” Ghastly said into the phone, and hung up on the sound of Rover and Echo-Gordon arguing over which room would be the best for a slumber party.

 

Breaking Scapegrace took very little time at all. The hardest part was keeping a straight face while Skulduggery spun a tale about Tanith’s magical abilities, and Tanith’s helpless, silent demands as to what she was meant to do with his threats. Luckily, Dexter had had a lot of experience in keeping straight faces.

“I have to admit, that was kind of fun,” Tanith admitted as they came out of the holding area.

“But you’re still going to abandon me for a date with _Ghastly_ ,” Dexter said.

Tanith shrugged. “What can I say? I like a man with scars. See you guys later.”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better I’d say she _actually_ liked him,” Dexter mused, watching as she strode down the hallway.

“Are you saying Ghastly isn’t worthy of being liked?” Skulduggery asked, tilting his head in the manner he used instead of having eyebrows to raise.

“Skulduggery, the last girl he dated died of old age a century ago.”

“Then it’s a good thing Tanith is a sorcerer, isn’t it? You should be happy your old friend might have someone interested in him who isn’t going to expire within the next four decades.”

“That depends on who she’s guarding and who’s trying to kill them,” Dexter pointed out, but he was smiling and didn’t try to hide it. Sometimes Ghastly’s apparent lack of desire to meet people worried them. Tanith would be good for him. Dexter clapped his hands together. “Well, then. Off to Roarhaven we go? Should we collect reinforcements first, just in case the ghosts get us?”

Skulduggery didn’t answer right away, so Dexter glanced at him. It was hard to tell given that the skeleton didn’t have a face, but if Dexter wasn’t mistaken his general air seemed hesitant. “Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you and Hopeless about.”

Dexter shrugged. “It means getting a preview of his office. Why not? Lead the way, good sir.”

“Naturally.”

They made their way through the Sanctuary to where the Elders’ offices were situated. Hopeless’s was the only one whose door was open, and when Dexter peered in he saw the redhead standing there, glancing around and looking out of his depth. Like he was in the wrong place entirely.

“Lost something?” Dexter asked, and a corner of Hopeless’s mouth slid upward without the mind-reader turning to look at him. He motioned for them to come in, still frowning at the back wall.

“Redecorating?” Skulduggery asked, following Dexter in and closing the door behind them. Hopeless glanced at them ruefully and nodded.

“Personally, I think you should replace the desk with a bed, but what do I know?” Dexter sat on said desk and propped his feet up on the chair, glancing around. This had once been Tome’s office. The Sanctuary staff cleared it out last year, after the teleporter’s funeral, and it had stood empty since then. Dexter rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “Where _did_ the desk come from, anyway?”

‘Eachan had it in his study in the manor. I had someone bring it over.’

“Ah.”

“Moving fast, I see,” Skulduggery observed.

Meritorious named Hopeless his clan heir in his will. The mind-reader was still in the process of sorting the former Grand Mage’s estate. Dexter looked around. At least Hopeless wouldn’t be lacking for furniture to put in the office, and it’d be better than any other cast-offs the Sanctuary might have in storage.

There came a knock at the door. Hopeless sighed and belatedly Dexter realised that was probably why he’d left it open to begin with. Skulduggery opened it to reveal a somewhat startled Sanctuary functionary.

“Yes?” Skulduggery asked.

“Um …” The functionary stared, blinked, and then held up an oilskin-wrapped parcel. “I have Elder Hopeless’s Journal here, sir.”

Elder Hopeless. Dexter started snickering and didn’t stop. _Elder Hopeless._ It sounded ridiculous. He apologised mentally, but when he glanced over Hopeless was grinning at him.

“Thank you,” said Skulduggery, taking the Journal and closing the door in the functionary’s face. He carried it over to the desk and put it down, turning it to Hopeless.

“Can we see?” Dexter asked with a grin.

Hopeless lifted an eyebrow. ‘After you were laughing at me?’

“At least this way you’ll have one less person laughing at you when the others hear someone call you that.”

‘Somehow I doubt that.’

Smiling, Hopeless unwrapped the oilskin. Dexter knew from seeing the Journals last year that they had no words on the front cover—they were simply emblazoned with the Elder’s clan crest and Ireland’s coat of arms. But to Dexter’s surprise, the crest he saw in the leather wasn’t Meritorious’s. Well, it was, but only halfway. It had the lion and it had the quill.

But it also had a crucifix and, in the background, a honeycomb.

Dexter stared and then shook his head with smile. “How long did it take Saracen to talk you into accepting the crest he made for you?”

‘He didn’t. I asked.’

Hopeless opened the Journal to the front page, written in beautiful calligraphy and detailing the Elder’s responsibilities and obligations. At the bottom was Hopeless’s signature and a waxen seal. The Sanctuary moved fast. The seal must have only been carved this morning. Hopeless closed the Journal.

“You’re not going to write in it?” Dexter asked. “It’s your first day. You have to write in it on your first day.”

‘Later,’ Hopeless signed with one hand, putting it in a drawer and locking it, and then leaning on the desk, all his attention on Skulduggery.

“Ah,” Skulduggery murmured, and then fell silent.

Dexter kicked one foot a few times in the air before saying, “You know, a key point of talking is actually making noises. With your mouth. And vocal chords. Or however it is you can talk without vocal chords.”

“True.” Skulduggery took a deep and physically unnecessary breath. “You know what Descry and I talked about a year ago.”

“You talk about a lot of things,” Dexter pointed out without thinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to have this conversation. He wasn’t sure he was _ready_ for this conversation. Then he exhaled slowly himself, forcing his fingers to relax their grip on the edge of the desk. For Skulduggery’s sake, he had to have this conversation. “Yeah. I’ve known since—you remember that mission at the pass? The one where we would have lost the war if Vile had been there, and then he wasn’t? It was a few nights after that. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Hopeless actually trapped in a nightmare.”

Skulduggery nodded. If he’d had eyes, Dexter knew he wouldn’t have been looking at either of them. Dexter could tell, from his rigid stance, that Skulduggery’s gaze was fixed on the wall over their shoulders.

“I needed to ask—” Skulduggery stopped and had to start over. The way he fumbled made something in Dexter’s chest tighten. “I wanted to know … why.”

“Why what?” Dexter asked. “Why the sky is blue? The grass is green? The meaning of life, the universe and everything?”

“Dexter,” Skulduggery said quietly. Dexter grimaced.

“Sorry. Habit.”

Skulduggery’s head shifted to look at Hopeless, who was still watching him patiently. “Why didn’t either of you tell anyone?”

‘I did answer that question last year, if you’ll recall,’ Hopeless signed.

“It can’t have been that easy. You know what I did. Why would you care about helping me after that?”

Dexter and Hopeless exchanged exasperated glances. “Because you’re our friend,” Dexter said slowly. “And that’s what friends do.”

“Technically speaking, I didn’t care about any of you before then. I was just going through the motions while in a wrathful stupor.”

‘Then why did you come back?’ Hopeless signed. Skulduggery hesitated. Hopeless smiled. ‘Ask what you really want to ask, Skulduggery.’

Skulduggery looked at him. “Vengeous is after the armour.”

“Oh yeah,” Dexter mumbled. “Forgot about that.”

It was really rather creepy the way Skulduggery’s head turned slowly toward him. “You forgot.”

“I tend to try and forget things which disturb me if I can’t do anything about them.”

“You forgot,” Skulduggery repeated, “that Vengeous is after Lord Vile’s armour. After … _my_ armour.”

“See, that’s the kind of disturbing thing I can’t do anything about.”

Skulduggery stared. Hopeless was laughing in his quiet way. Finally the skeleton shook his head in bemusement and incredulity. “You’re both crazy.”

‘It runs in the family.’ Hopeless grinned at him.

Crazy or not, Skulduggery had relaxed a little. Dexter doubted it was possible to relax completely with a subject like this, but it was a start. “Vengeous is after the armour,” he repeated. “Sooner or later, we’re going to have to deal with it. Should I tell the others?”

Oh. Oh boy. Dexter felt a little like Ghastly had just punched him in the gut at the very _thought_ of telling the others. It had been so long, and the more those decades rolled by the more Hopeless was proven to be right about letting Skulduggery heal in what he believed to be anonymity. Dexter hadn’t bothered to think about what might happen if the others found out. The possibility of it happening had been too distant.

Until now.

Hopeless nodded. ‘Saracen already knows.’

“He what?” Dexter blinked. “He _knows_? How long has he known? Why didn’t _I_ know that he knew?” With a tiny smile Hopeless tapped the bridge of his nose. Dexter scowled at him. “I hate you both.”

“I always wondered if he did.” Skulduggery shook his head. “The first time we met, he asked me what I had to do with the Black Death. But he never implied knowing details, and I assumed that he would have told someone, like any sane man would, if he knew for certain.”

‘He once asked me if I knew, and he knew that I wasn’t telling anyone. That was enough for him.’

Skulduggery nodded and said conversationally, “Have I told you that you’re crazy?”

‘You may have mentioned it.’

“Just making sure. So. The others?”

Hopeless smiled, and this time it was his excruciatingly gentle smile. ‘What do you think?’

“Is ‘never’ a legitimate answer?” Skulduggery asked.

“Not unless you want me to steal your hat and run an iron over it,” Dexter threatened.

Skulduggery raised his hands. “Well, I can’t let that happen.” He faltered and lowered his hands very slowly. “I can’t tell them. I can’t—Ghastly’s _mother_ , Hopeless.”

There was a tone in his voice which Dexter had never heard from Skulduggery before. Soft, pleading, wavering with guilt and uncertainty. It brought a lump to Dexter’s throat just to hear it, at the same time that a violent chill swept through him. It was one thing to remember all the times Vile had been seen on the battlefield and know that it was Skulduggery behind the armour’s mask. It was entirely another to hear him admit to it outright.

Especially that.

Skulduggery said nothing after that. He stared down at the floor, an unmoving mannequin. Hopeless sighed, opened a drawer and pulled out some notepaper and a pen. He still wrote things sometimes. Signing was convenient, but there was only so much nuance it could get across. The Dead Men could fill in the rest with what they knew of Hopeless’s mannerisms, but for some things, for the weight of them, something more solid was needed. Like words on a page.

Dexter still wondered what Hopeless was thinking when the mind-reader turned the page to show his slightly sprawling handwriting. Dexter stared at those words and wished he was imagining them. He’d never thought of that. None of them had thought of that.

_‘I remember murdering you and your family and enjoying it.’_

Skulduggery stiffened. “That … is not even remotely the same thing. Serpine did that. Not you.”

Hopeless shook his head. He wrote something and turned the page around again.

_‘Serpine never felt remorse for what he did.’_

“You can’t read my mind anymore, Descry. You have no idea what I—” Skulduggery stopped short at the sight of Hopeless’s newest smile. This was beyond tired. Weary in a way that wasn’t physical. Dark, hollow, understanding of things Dexter could barely imagine. It was the sort of look Hopeless always got when he woke up from someone else’s nightmare. When he experienced someone else’s death. When he read the mind of pure evil.

There was a long pause and Skulduggery looked away and said nothing. Hopeless’s pen scratched on paper. He handed the sheet to Dexter and Dexter glanced at it before shoving it in the skeleton’s face.

_‘That is what makes you worth it, Skulduggery.’_

“Because I feel remorse?” Skulduggery asked, still steadfastly not looking Hopeless’s way.

“Because you’re our _friend_ ,” Dexter snapped, dropping the page back on Hopeless’s desk. “The fact that you feel sorry about it is just proof you’re not an irredeemable jackass. Well, not an irredeemably _evil_ jackass, anyway.”

“That’s very comforting, Dexter.”

“You’re welcome.” Dexter picked up Hopeless’s next note and pushed it up to the skeleton’s eye-sockets.

_‘I think I’d know the difference in mentality between a remorse less killer and a remorseful one, thank you.’_

Skulduggery sighed and took the page from Dexter, crumbling it in his gloved fist and burning it to ash in his hand. He reached out to take the other page and did the same thing. “The frustrating thing about this is that I can’t even say you’re biased from reading my mind. In either direction.”

“What are you going to do about the others?” Dexter asked. Skulduggery stared at the wall. Dexter and Hopeless let him, waiting patiently.

“I will,” Skulduggery said abruptly. “Tell them. If it turns out we have to fight the armour at all, to stop Vengeous. Before tomorrow night. I … might need the help.”

Dexter blew out air, slumping on the desk. “Well. I don’t know about you, but I think I need the relaxation of hunting down the Torment in the ghost town of Roarhaven.”

“Definitely,” Skulduggery agreed, finally turning to look at them. “I’d ask you to join us, Elder Hopeless, but I’m sure you have much more pressing and interesting things to do. Like furnishing your new office.”

Hopeless made a face, crumbled a wad of paper and tossed it at them as they left, Dexter laughing all the way out the door.


	8. Children of the shadows

Already things were changing. It hadn’t been a day and Morwenna could see the differences. Thurid Guild was less aggressive—no less assertive or opinionated, but less inclined to assume all his ideas would pass. On the two occasions after the initial meeting, Morwenna had seen Guild watching Hopeless with a wary reserve that made her wonder whether there _was_ something over which he was ashamed. And, if so, whether Hopeless knew it from days past—or was simply bluffing. Morwenna couldn’t tell. Hopeless’s poker-face was nearly as good as Skulduggery’s. It had to be, even a century after the war.

Guild had been wrong when he said no one would have respect for Hopeless because no one remembered who he was. It might be true of some Sanctuaries outside Ireland, and if so Morwenna counted that an advantage, but everyone in the Irish Sanctuary itself knew him by sight, and the ambassadors of the English and American Sanctuaries both recognised Hopeless’s name as a member of the Dead Men.

It said a great deal about Guild’s own mentality. He was a man who valued obvious strength, and disregarded the subtle. His loss.

Still, the Sanctuary remained claustrophobic, so Morwenna was sitting on a sidewalk bench across from a park in the centre of Dublin. It was too far past lunch-time for her to claim she was out to lunch, but then again, she hadn’t had lunch earlier anyway. It was hard enough finding time to eat, let alone eat outside of the Sanctuary, but she had done it. She had ulterior motives. She was waiting for someone.

_“Help me save my children.”_

Eachan had admitted to relying too much on Hopeless, once upon a time. It was one of the reasons why he’d tried so hard not to, after the war was over. Morwenna had seen what would happen if she tried to ignore the wisdom of a mind-reader. That didn’t mean she was going to mistake Hopeless for her only source—she had seen what would happen if she tried _that_ , too.

Morwenna had become complacent over the years. It was time to change that, and having Hopeless on her side was only the first step. She just wasn’t sure if this step would be nearly as easy.

“Grand Mage.”

Morwenna looked up to find Solomon standing beside her bench, looking out into the park. “Solomon,” she greeted him with a smile, and held up one of the boxes she held on her lap. “Here.”

Her former student lifted an eyebrow as he reached down to take the box, and then opened it. He laughed. “It’s been a long time since I had these.”

“I seem to recall bribing you with them when you were younger.”

“Merely cultivating my political aspirations early.” He closed the box, fixing Morwenna with his even, piercing gaze. “What is it you’re bribing me into?”

“Can’t I leave a gift to an old student of mine?”

“Were the circumstances different, I might actually _believe_ that. Unfortunately, they aren’t.”

Morwenna shrugged. He wasn’t precisely wrong. The gift was to make her request easier to swallow; it would take a lot more than a favourite childhood edible to convince him to _accept_. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything else—nothing she was willing to use. “I may have an ulterior motive.”

“Of course.”

“I imagine the Temple has heard about Baron Vengeous.”

“Rather difficult to have missed that news,” Solomon said dryly. “Are you approaching me about an alliance? I’m flattered you think I have so much authority with High Priest Tenebrae.”

“An alliance, perhaps,” Morwenna allowed, “but not necessarily with the Temple.”

At once Solomon’s expression grew blanker and more wary, all but erasing the subtle amiability he had been wearing before. “You want to make an alliance with _me_.”

“Do you require all your politics to be approved by the Temple first?” Morwenna asked blandly, raising an eyebrow. Solomon didn’t answer at first, watching her with a small frown.

“That,” he said finally, “depends on what it relates to.”

“Always so careful,” Morwenna said wryly, and went straight to the point. “Baron Vengeous aims to resurrect the Grotesquery to bring back the Faceless Ones.”

She was taking a gamble here. She had no intention of even implying to Guild that she was seeking help outside the Sanctuary—let alone in the _Temple_ of all places. Just affiliating with them, even with one of her old students, was a risk on both their parts. If Guild felt she was a figurehead for the Temple, he would have her removed. If Tenebrae felt Solomon was developing sympathies to people outside the Temple, on top of his admitted eccentricities, he would be watched. If he wasn’t already.

She hadn’t told Hopeless either. She’d assumed he would know what she planned in detail, but when Skulduggery revealed Hopeless _didn’t_ , she chose not to enlighten him. Better that Solomon had no reason to think anyone else knew. Perhaps later, depending on how this meeting went, she would ask for advice.

Solomon’s frown deepened. “The Grotesquery was a story invented by Mevolent to break morale.”

“No. It’s real. The remains of a Faceless One. If Vengeous can find Vile’s armour, and believe me he is looking, he’ll have the power to bring a demi-god back to life.”

Solomon stared at her, and Morwenna was decently sure he’d paled. She didn’t think it was the thought of a resurrected Faceless One, either. Yet his voice was even, if quiet and flat, when he asked, “Exactly what is it you want from me?”

“I want to know,” Morwenna said just as steadily, “if I can rely on your help to fight Vengeous if he should gain Lord Vile’s powers as a weapon.”

Truthfully, there had always been very little chance of Solomon actually agreeing to help. Morwenna was still startled by the speed and viciousness of his response. “No.”

“Solomon,” Morwenna began, but he shook his head, thrusting the box at her.

“ _No_. You thought some candied roses would be enough to assuage me into agreeing to _that_? You don’t know me as well as I thought you did, Morwenna.”

She looked up at his face, at the tightness of his mouth and the darkness in his eyes, and pushed the box back at him. “The candies are a gift, Solomon,” she said quietly. “I was hoping logic would do the rest. You know Vile’s powers arguably better than anyone.”

“I don’t understand a _tenth_ of Lord Vile’s powers.”

“And yet,” Morwenna observed, “in over a dozen ‘training’ rounds, you were the only one to survive him.”

He tensed. “You said my debt was paid.”

“It is.”

“Then this is all irrelevant. Lord Vile wasn’t even close to being at his full power when I fought him. If you think I could do so again and come out alive, I’d have to say your faith in me is ridiculously inflated.”

“Except that it won’t be Lord Vile you’d be fighting,” Morwenna said. “It would be Vengeous, who is not a necromancer and has no concept of the powers he’ll be wielding, except in observation.”

“My answer is still no.”

Morwenna kept his gaze for a while longer, but she could tell by the set of his jaw that he wouldn’t be moved. Not yet. Not by anything she could say. Solomon was a man driven by fear more than even most Necromancers. They feared a vague abstract, barely comprehended. What Solomon feared, he had already witnessed and experienced simply because he had _lived_ while his peers remained shut in temple.

Finally Morwenna nodded. “As you please, Solomon.” She rose and tossed her empty food carton into the bin beside the bench, and was about to move away when she paused and looked back. “I know you better than you think I do, Solomon,” she said. “You have always been my favourite student. It’s just that I still _expect_ more from you as well.”

With that she turned and strode down the street, and didn’t look back when she reached the cover of the alley where she vanished in a whirl of shadow.


	9. Invasion of the body-snatchers

There were very many times lately when Desmond found himself wishing things were different. Not much different, although he had to admit that things would probably be very,  _very_  different if he’d known about magic all along. He might not have turned out quite so well adjusted, for starters.

He had moments like that nearly every time Stephanie got to do something he wished he could have done when he was her age. Going out and meeting sorcerers. Talking about magic. Learning magic. The fact that he didn’t sit in on her magic lessons was as much his choice as Melissa’s suggestion.

Right now, Des was wishing things were different because his daughter was at a slumber-party with sorcerers. Des had heard Rover arguing with her over who got which pillows in the background of Ghastly’s explanation. It filled Des with a weird and very uncomfortable burn in his gut. Regret, anger, jealousy.

He was jealous of his own thirteen-year-old daughter.

“I think those are fine enough.” Melissa took the knife out of his hand and he blinked down at the very finely-chopped mushrooms.

“I was just trying something new,” he said with great dignity. “There’s been a lot of changes lately so I just thought I’d hop on the bandwagon. I’ve even been thinking about growing a  _beard_.”

“Only if you never sleep where I can reach you with the shaving-cream and razor,” Melissa said, taking the mushrooms to add to the sauce.

“It  _would_  make things interesting.”

Desmond followed her and gave the white sauce a stir. Lasagne was the only thing Des could cook well, which was why it was the dish he’d made the night he proposed. (He had accidentally baked the ring into it, too, but that was a story for another time.) Since Stephanie was going to be out all night, they had decided they may as well take full advantage. The Edgleys had been spending an awful lot of time together lately.

But this was the reason Des was glad nothing had changed. Why he didn’t wonder if there could be as big a change as Fergus and Gordon had been imagining.

It was Melissa.

Fergus had explained it all. What little he had to, given the tales they’d grown up on. How sorcerers were long-lived—long-lived to the point of counting their age in  _centuries_. How most people weren’t. Stephanie would be fine. She’d have friends, she’d find someone. Children were meant to out-live their parents.

But it was nights like these when Desmond looked at his mortal wife and knew this was where he was meant to be. So what if it was only eighty years’ worth of adventure? It was  _adventure_. An adventure they could share, instead of his out-living Melissa by centuries.

Nights like these were enough to keep the wistfulness at bay.

Melissa looked up from stirring the mince, smiling that funny little smile she did when she was thinking strange thoughts. That was one of the many, many things he loved about her. She wasn’t afraid to  _have_  strange thoughts. “What?”

“Have I mentioned that I love your brain?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her temple.

She laughed. “Any particular reason?”

“Well, it’s soft and squidgy and cuddly,” he pointed out.

“And wet and gross and yuck. Have you been having an affair with my brain behind my back, Des?”

He kissed her temple again, nodding solemnly against the side of her head. “I’m afraid I’ve been a bit misleading. I’m not interested in your looks. I’ve just wanted you for your brain all along.”

“This might be shocking to hear, Des, but I need my brain.”

“Can I apply for half-shares?”

“It would be a steep price,” Melissa warned, and turned in his arms with that impish grin she’d been wearing the first time they met, when she’d slipped some milk-soaked bread into Gordon’s jacket-pocket because he’d been ignoring her, his date. “But I think you might be able to find the fee from somewhere.”

“I can give you a down payment,” Desmond offered.

“I was thinking maybe just a gift of intent …”

“I can do that too.”

“Prove it.”

He bent his head and kissed her, and that was when the wall’s plaster cracked and the man in brown leather boots stepped out with a man in black beside him.

 

Of all the ways Valkyrie thought she might spend an evening, they didn’t include learning to play poker with Gordon’s ghost, an eighty-year-old woman wearing leather, a tailor with a face like he’d been fed through a slicer and a man who enjoyed cuddles and slumber-parties. Echo-Gordon put up a token protest, but soon gave up in the face of Rover’s blatant refusal to tell him what he missed over the past year.

Rover insisted, in spite of all Valkyrie’s objections, that slumber parties had to happen all in one room. Therefore they had pulled out Gordon’s mattresses and linens and dragged them down into the sitting-room, with Echo-Gordon directing traffic at the stairs.

“Do you guys do this often?” she heard Tanith ask Ghastly as she helped him bring down a mattress.

“When you’ve known Rover for at least a decade, you get used to having the occasional snugglefest. You don’t have to join, if you can get away from him.”

“Actually I was just wondering when the next one might be so I could put it in my calendar.”

Valkyrie grinned into the stack of pillows she was carrying and almost tripped down the steps.

“What do we want to eat tonight?” Rover demanded as he stumbled into the sitting-room, his voice muffled past the bundle of linens he held. “I think we should eat pizza. I want pizza. Pizza is the best food.”

Ghastly looked up from where he was shoving a mattress into place. “We’re not having pizza,” he objected. “Pizza is greasy. Pizza is unhealthy. We are not teaching Valkyrie bad eating habits. We’re not eating pizza.”

Rover dropped his bundle and looked at Ghastly incredulously. “ _Bad eating habits_? If you can’t eat pizza during a slumber-party, when can you eat pizza?”

Tanith looked at Ghastly too. “He’s got a point.”

Ghastly straightened up and crossed his arms. “I don’t care. Rover is a junk-food addict. He wants to die of a heart attack before he’s five-fifty. I’m a boxer. I need to watch my figure. I am  _not_  eating pizza.”

Valkyrie broke into fits of giggles and sat down on the sofa to get a hold of herself. Echo-Gordon looked at Ghastly with a strange smile on his face which was very much like her father’s, and raised his hand. “I think you should eat pizza. I’m dead. I have to live vicariously through you.”

“Won’t that just make you feel worse about being dead?” Tanith asked.

“Not if I imagine I get all the pizza my good friend Ghastly, here, will grumblingly refuse.”

“I’m not eating pizza,” Ghastly muttered. “Get me, I don’t know, a steak or something. Or maybe Chinese. Or Thai. Get me Thai, Rover.”

“Oh, because  _that’s_  healthy,” Rover shot back, but he was grinning as he pulled out his phone. “Thai and pizza it is. Orders, ladies?”

Valkyrie raised her hand. “Pepperoni?”

“Hawaiian for me,” Tanith said.

“Pepperoni and Hawaiian for our dates.” Rover turned away, putting the phone to his ear.

“He has a pizza-parlour on speed-dial?” Valkyrie asked.

“Of course he does,” Ghastly grumbled. “Twelve dials, eight of them for us and four for fast-food joints.”

“One of them is the Thai place you love,” Rover called back, “so I wouldn’t whine if I were you, big baby.”

“I’m not being a baby,” Ghastly muttered.

“There, there, diddums.” Tanith patted him on the head. He looked up at her and Valkyrie swore he pouted, but since it was Ghastly, she couldn’t say for certain. Either way, Valkyrie was astonished to see Tanith’s cheeks redden before she looked away, clearing her throat.

“Did you just  _blush_?” Valkyrie blurted, pausing in the middle of fluffing up a pillow.

“Of course not.” Tanith looked back and raised an eyebrow, and the blush must have been a trick of the light because there was nothing odd about her face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Who blushed?” Rover asked, wandering back into the room and disconnecting the call.

“Ghastly,” Tanith said promptly. “Ghastly blushed. I think it might be your feminine wiles.”

“Well, I am very wily.” Rover batted his eyelashes at Ghastly. Ghastly’s ears, Valkyrie saw with great interest, were red. Somehow she didn’t think it had anything to do with Rover’s feminine wiles.

“You should teach me to be wily,” said Valkyrie, grinning, half just for something to say and half wondering whether she could learn something which could make a boy react like that. Even though she wasn’t terribly interested, it was sure to come in handy.

“You’re too young to be wily,” Rover said.

Valkyrie scowled. “You always say that.”

“Trust me on this one.” Rover smiled at her, but there was something weirdly gentle about this smile, like he was borrowing one of Hopeless’s. Valkyrie had never seen Rover be outright gentle like this before. He didn’t take anything seriously enough. “You don’t want to learn this kind of wiliness just yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because this isn’t a kind of wiliness you can really appreciate until you’re an adult,” Rover said, “and you can’t force being an adult, no matter how mature you are or how much you’d like to push it.”

Valkyrie stared. “What’s wrong with you? You’re being all mature and wise. Did you start drinking?”

“Gordon, she’s casting aspersions on my maturity,” Rover whined, pointing at her and blowing a raspberry.

“You know, I think I’ve figured out why I like having nieces and not daughters of my own,” Echo-Gordon said to Ghastly.

“Why’s that?” Ghastly asked, grinning now.

“Because I can dump them back on their parents when they start whining. Or Gordon could. Theoretically I can too, I suppose, but …” He wilted. “Can we talk about something else?”

“We can always go back to my feminine wiles, if you want,” Rover offered.

Echo-Gordon looked at him up and down. “I’m so very glad I’m a ghost and don’t have to make up a reason to turn you down right now.”

“You’d need to  _make up_  a reason?” Tanith asked.

“Now that hurts,” Rover grumbled.

“Aw, it’s okay.” Valkyrie patted his arm. “I like you. Let’s go make the beds.”

“You’re my new favourite.” Valkyrie found herself yanked into a big, unexpectedly warm hug, but it didn’t last long enough to return it. She was left to blink dazedly at Rover after he pulled back, and he cackled.

“Another one brought into the fold of Larrikin’s hugs. Now the pretty’s mine. Come on, bed-making time!”

Valkyrie threw a desperate glance over her shoulder at Ghastly and Tanith, but they were too busy laughing to help as Rover dragged her off and shoved a bundle of sheets into her hands. “Ever made your own bed?”

“Not … really.”

“Then it’s lucky I’m here! I can even teach you hospital corners.”

“I don’t need to know hospital corners,” Valkyrie pointed out, dropping the sheets onto a bed and reaching for the end of the one Rover had just shaken out. “I’m not in the Army.”

“But it’d impress your mum,” Rover answered, still in that sing-song manner that made Valkyrie feel torn between hitting him and grinning at him.

“You’re so annoying,” she grumbled, trying to be as annoyed as she sounded.

“You love me.”

“Like a virus.”

“I’m hurt. You’re hurting me, Val. I’m cut to the quick.”

It took nearly twenty minutes to make the beds, and it wasn’t long before Valkyrie had to give up on not grinning. Definitely not how Valkyrie had imagined spending an evening, but she wouldn’t want to switch places with anyone for the world. She could understand how Rover had managed to become such good friends with Fergus in spite of all Fergus’s attempts to resist. Rover didn’t give up. He laughed and taunted and cajoled and simply refused to leave to the point where someone just had to accept the inevitable.

“Why are you like this?” she demanded. Okay, so she was grinning. That didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Like what?” Rover grinned up at her from where he was kneeling to tuck in the sheets. “Handsome, dashing and debonair?”

“Obsessed with cuddles,” she shot back.

“You mean you’re not? You should be.”

“Why?”

“Because cuddles are awesome, of course. C’mere.” He lunged at her and she jumped back, stumbled over another mattress, and was caught in his loose grip. He noogied her head; she twisted, dug her hip into his side, and threw him onto the mattress.

“You yelp like a girl,” she told him, leaning over him. He looked up at her.

“Nothing wrong with sounding like a girl.”

“Except that you’re not a girl.”

“Eh.” Rover shrugged and rolled to his feet. “People worry too much about the details. Toss me?” He pointed at the pillow nearby her and she threw it to him. It hit him in the face and he spluttered.

“Why  _are_  you like that?” Tanith asked curiously, shaking out a blanket. “I heard a lot of stories, but I thought most of them were just that.”

“Stories?” Rover and Ghastly exchanged glances, and then looked back at her. “What kind of stories?”

“We’ve got no idea what you mean,” Ghastly agreed. “I can’t imagine what kind of stories you could be talking about.”

“So those rumours about you having orgies were complete and total fabrications, with no basis in truth?”

“That depends,” Rover said, “on whether you expect there to have been any—”

“No basis in truth whatsoever,” Ghastly cut in.

Valkyrie threw up her hands. “Okay, I’m a kid. You don’t have to shut up just because I am. I’m not stupid.”

“Yeah?” Rover grinned. “So what was I about to say?”

She scowled. “I don’t know.”

“Sex,” Rover supplied before Ghastly could stop him. The tailor groaned and put his head in his hands. “That depends on whether you expect there to have been any sex or not.”

Valkyrie blinked and the words came out before she could wonder whether she wanted them. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Have any sex.”

“Depends on who with.” Rover grinned.

Echo-Gordon stared. “You don’t want to talk about your wiliness but you don’t mind talking to my niece about sex? My niece is thirteen. She isn’t old enough for the Talk.”

Valkyrie paled. “Oh my God. Is that what this is? Is this the Talk? Can we change subjects? I don’t want to have the Talk.”

“I should have just led with that,” Rover mused, and that was when the doorbell rang. He leapt up. “Food! Food’s here!”

“I can’t believe I almost just got the  _Talk_ ,” Valkyrie mumbled, sitting on the couch beside Tanith. “From  _Rover_.”

“Trust me,” Ghastly said as he set plates out on the coffee-table, “that wasn’t the Talk. I’ve seen Rover give the Talk before. This is just Rover believing in a different scale of informational rights than most people.”

“What does that even mean?”

Ghastly glanced over his shoulder. They could hear Rover greeting the deliveryman cheerfully. “Rover didn’t have much of a childhood,” Ghastly said quietly. “He doesn’t believe in misinformation, but let’s just say he has reason to not want someone your age to be too versed in how to flirt with someone yet.”

Valkyrie frowned. “That’s not what I asked.”

“That’s what he meant by having wiles,” Ghastly explained.

“Oh.” She blinked. “So what kind of a childhood did he have?” Ghastly hesitated and she crossed her arms. “Hey, I can’t approach things the right way unless I have all the appropriate information, right?”

“Who taught you that one?” Tanith asked, looking amused. Valkyrie grinned at her.

“Saracen. Something about how when he joined the unit they didn’t tell him what he was getting into until it was too late.”

“That was an accident,” Ghastly muttered, but his shoulders slumped. “Fine. Just don’t let Fergus hear about this. Or Rover, for that matter. Rover was an orphan, and sometimes the only places that took orphans in did it so they could make money off them.”

His tone sounded like he was hoping Valkyrie was going to let it go at that. She glanced at Tanith, but Tanith’s expression indicated she’d understood something Valkyrie hadn’t, so the girl glared at him. “To make money how?”

Ghastly sighed. “They sold him to people who wanted to have sex with him.”

One day, Valkyrie thought, one day she was going to learn not to push it. She felt all the blood drain out of her face. “You mean when he was my age?”

“Younger,” Ghastly said. “Nine. Ten. Earlier. He can’t remember exactly. Remembering the birthdays of orphans wasn’t high on the list of people taking care of them.”

“But I wasn’t even interested in that kind of thing when I was  _twelve_. And I’m still not.”

Ghastly smiled at her gently. “That’s why he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I think I feel sick.”

“I think I do too,” Tanith muttered. “I thought people who had that happen didn’t like being touched.”

“Things were different back then,” Ghastly said with a shrug. “You accepted horrible things because you had no choice. You just endured. What makes Rover different is that he refuses to be ashamed of the things he did to survive. The opposite, actually. That’s why he’s so affectionate. It’s his way of fighting back.”

“Things who did to survive what now?” Rover demanded as he came back in, but something about the way he lifted his eyebrow at Ghastly made Valkyrie think he knew exactly what they’d been talking about.

“Things I did to survive having to be around you lot day in and day out,” Ghastly said at once, but shrugged apologetically as well.

“It’s not my fault you need to work on your stamina,” Rover accused, putting the pizza-boxes, garlic-bread and soda bottle down on the table. “Your Thai should come soon, but in the meantime you can work on holding out until it does. I forgot to call Anton to invite him over.”

“He’s going to refuse,” Ghastly observed as Rover punched Shudder’s speed-dial and put it on speaker.

 “I’ll just have to be really convincing. Hello, Midnight Hotel!” He chirruped the last into the phone and flopped onto one of the mattresses.

“Rover.” Anton Shudder sounded spectacularly unenthusiastic. In the past year Valkyrie had wondered more than once exactly how they were such good friends, kind of like how she wondered the same about Rover and Fergus. The difference was that Anton and Rover had known each other since  _before_  the Dead Men, and Anton let Rover live at the Hotel. Then again, he let Dexter live at the Hotel too.

“We’re having a slumber-party. And we have pizza! Well, except for Ghastly. Ghastly’s got Thai. Either way, we’ve got food and you need to get your butt here.”

“No.”

“No?” Rover’s tone was incredulous but he rolled his eyes at Valkyrie and slid sideways so his upper half was hanging upside-down off the mattress. “Slumber-party, Anton! We’re indoctrinating—I mean,  _introducing_  a new generation of snugglers into the court!”

“You ring me to invite me to a slumber-party. The key-word being ‘slumber’. Then you lead with a description of snuggling?”

Rover sighed heavily and held the phone out to Ghastly. “Here. Explain it to him in a way he’ll understand.”

Ghastly leaned in. “Vengeous is after Valkyrie and he knows where she lives. We’re on protection duty.”

“I see. Very well.”

“Hey, he said exactly what I said!” Rover protested.

“You just need to know how to pitch things,” Ghastly told him.

“My pitching skills are fine. Gordon’s, Anton.”

There was a very heavy silence. “You’re having a slumber party at _Gordon’s_.”

“You say that like you don’t like my house,” Echo-Gordon muttered. “In fact, you’ve _never_ liked my house.” Valkyrie’s ears pricked up.

“We needed a safe place to bring Valkyrie,” Ghastly said.

“Because Vengeous knows where she lives,” Anton said.

“He does. Dusk found her this morning.”

“What about her parents?”

“Vengeous isn’t the type to take hostages,” Ghastly said, but he was frowning.

“Yet you don’t know why the Baron is after her,” Shudder said in his quiet, raspy voice. Shivers were already running down Valkyrie’s spine, but that voice made them worse. “What makes you think he can’t get it from her parents?”

“Um.” Echo-Gordon put up a hand. His transparent face was pale. “I think we should call my brother now.”

“They’re having an ‘evening’,” Valkyrie said, and her heart sank. “They won’t pick up.”

“That’s why I was talking about Fergus. You can ask him to check up on them.”

“Risk him walking into my parents on an evening?” Valkyrie shuddered. “That’s cruel.” She still reached into her coat-pocket for her phone and found Fergus’s number in her contact list, then put it on speakerphone.

“Hello?” Fergus sounded confused and wary at once. “Stephanie?”

“Hi, Uncle Fergus,” Valkyrie said, trying to muster an upbeat tone.

“What’s wrong? I thought you were with the Dead Men.”

“I am,” she assured him, “but we’re talking to Mr Shudder and—can you check on Mum and Dad for me?”

Typical Fergus pounced on exactly what she  _didn’t_ say. “Are they in danger?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We just think it’s a good idea to check up on them.”

“Let me put it this way, Fergy,” Rover said. “We don’t actually know why Vengeous is after Val.”

“Or whether her parents can offer the same advantage,” Shudder added. There was a moment of silence.

“I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

Ten minutes later Rover’s phone rang once, cut off, then started over. Before Valkyrie could even wonder why, both of the Dead Men had dropped their food and leapt up to bolt for the door. 

 

Fergus huddled into the wall underneath the kitchen windowsill, wishing desperately that it was dark and not  _almost_  dark with the sun still shining happily just over the horizon. He would have felt like a fool, cuddling the wall to his brother’s house, if he didn’t know exactly what was going on in there.

He clutched his phone, not daring to call anyone. It vibrated in his hand and he looked at the text message.

_‘On the way.’_

Even driving fast, they would take ten minutes to arrive. There was a clatter, a cry of pain and a thud from inside the house, quickly muffled. Fergus flinched.

“C’mon, Dusk, be nice to the pretty lady,” chided someone with a Texan accent. Fergus had caught a glimpse of them both through the window—the cowboy and the man in black. The cowboy was covering Desmond, keeping him away from his wife, and the man in black had Melissa pushed up against a wall. There was a frying-pan on the floor. Fergus was sure he’d seen the man in black before, and Rover had told Fergus in on the details this morning. That had to be the vampire.

There was no way Fergus could fight a  _vampire_.

But he had to do something. Ten minutes was too long, and that was his brother and sister-in-law in there. He couldn’t leave another one of his brothers at the mercy of sorcerers—not again.

There was one thing he could try. One thing that wasn’t as flashy as a tiny candle-flame in the palm of his hand, but infinitely more useful—provided he could actually use it. He wasn’t sure. He’d never tried it in a situation like this. Actually, he’d sworn he never would unless he absolutely had to, because he didn’t know what would happen if he did, but there wasn’t much choice. Rover had used it once, and saved their lives.

Trying and failing to keep his hands from trembling, Fergus crept around to the back door. He couldn’t do anything to cause a distraction like ringing a doorbell. Rover had said the man with Dusk, Sanguine, could walk through walls. If they thought someone else was there they wouldn’t bother hiding, they’d just leave. They’d probably take Desmond or Melissa with them. Fergus had to make sure that didn’t happen. Right now, they were taking their time against the weak ‘mortals’. He had to make sure it stayed that way.

He could hear cars driving. Children laughing down the street. It was surreal, knowing there were sorcerers inside his brother’s house, threatening them. He could hear them through the open windows.

“You’re a vampire.” Desmond’s voice, shaking.

“Obviously.” Dusk’s voice, sneering.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Melissa, quiet and more even than Fergus could have imagined, “but my name doesn’t have anything to do with swans and I’m already married.”

Another cry of pain made Fergus wince. He found the key hidden under a pot and fumbled it into the lock.

“Aw, those books.” The cowboy laughed. “Creepy, aren’t they? Pretty-boy wannabes with body-glitter.”

“Do you wear body-glitter, Mr Dusk?”

One day, Fergus promised himself, he would make Desmond take some kind of social-awareness course. Especially when it involved crazy sorcerers attacking them. He turned the key slowly and quietly, and the handle, and pushed the door open. He didn’t risk closing it. Des didn’t remember to maintain menial things around the house like locks, but Melissa did. Fergus was thankful for that right now.

He took deep breaths, trying not to gulp or gasp and hoping the vampire was too focussed and complacent to sense that someone new had entered the house. He was crazy. He had no weapons. He just had his phone. His phone and a magic trick he only knew because he’d once seen a sorcerer who was centuries old use it to save them from dying in a car-crash.

He knew that he needed to see what he wanted to move as a series of connected points. That the point was to move those connections until he got the result he wanted. He just needed to be calm enough.

He needed to not think while he moved around the corner to the kitchen. While Sanguine turned to look at him with the sort of mild surprise of a cat who’d just had a mouse walk right up to him. While he put out his hands and  _pushed_. Dusk shot backwards into Sanguine and they both went flying over the kitchen table, sending kitchenware clattering everywhere.

“Come on,” Fergus said, his voice shaking as he reached out for Melissa. She was shaking, but she moved toward him. Desmond was at the far end of the kitchen and he was staring with an open mouth.

“Fergus?”

“Desmond, come on!”

Sanguine cursed, trying to roll over and get up, but Dusk was on his feet and snarling. Fergus tried to push on the air again but Dusk slammed him back against the wall. The blow made Fergus gasp for air and his fingers claw at Dusk’s shirt, and then pain erupted in his neck.

Someone was shouting. A few people were shouting. Fergus’s vision wavered, but he saw Melissa swing one of her largest pots at Dusk’s head. Sanguine stepped out of the wall behind her and seized her wrist. Desmond picked up the frying-pan and moved in, and Dusk looked up and stepped back and batted the pan away. Fergus sank to the floor, lightheaded and breathless, with his pulse roaring in his ears.

“Don’t kill ’em!” Sanguine was shouting. He yanked the pot out of Melissa’s hand, but she twisted and jabbed her elbow into his solar-plexus and he doubled over. She kneed him in the groin and took back her pot, swinging around and aiming it at Dusk. Looking annoyed, he stepped out of the way and wrenched her arm behind her back, ignoring her gasp of pain. Desmond stopped, his frying-pan still upraised and face twisted with anger and uncertainty.

“Enough of this,” said Dusk. “Which of you has the blood of the Ancients?”

Through his daze the question made Fergus jolt with recognition, but his body didn’t want to move. Sanguine straightened, wheezing, and pointed at Fergus. “Him,” he gasped. “We’ll take ’im.”

Dusk frowned. “Are you certain?”

“He was at the Sanctuary last year,” said Sanguine, “and he can use magic. The girl’s too hard to get with the Dead Men all over her every minute of the day, but at least we can have a descendant who’s actually used magic before. Better safe than sorry, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“You can’t have him,” Desmond said, and even though he sounded terrified he had that particular determined set of his jaw which Fergus had not seen in a long time.

Sanguine shrugged. “Hey, I appreciate how you’ve gotta fight and all, but there’s not much you can do.” He smiled, tipped his hat, and sank into the floor. Fergus only had enough time to see Desmond lunging toward him, and then he felt a pair of hands yank him back into the wall and Desmond’s kitchen vanished.


	10. The blame game

Valkyrie’s heart was pounding so hard in her chest she was almost surprised no one else could hear it. Ghastly’s van didn’t seem as manoeuvrable as the Bentley, and every time he went around a corner Valkyrie swore she felt the wheels lift off the road. Still, she didn’t say anything. Her parents were in danger. They needed to get home _now_.

She gripped the sides of her seat and watched as Tanith calmly checked her sword. It was the only thing keeping Valkyrie going right now—knowing that Tanith, and Rover, and Ghastly, would stop at nothing to make sure her parents were safe. The thought still ran through her head— _‘This is because of me.’_

“This isn’t your fault,” said Ghastly, almost as if he was reading her mind. It was only because she knew Hopeless could do exactly that which made her stare at him.

“What?”

“This isn’t your fault,” Ghastly repeated. “You had nothing to do with this. Vengeous has an agenda, and there’s nothing you or anyone can say to influence that.”

“He went after my parents because he couldn’t get to me.”

“And we should have put your parents under protection as well. That isn’t your fault. Most sorcerers don’t bother to go after mortals like your parents, no matter what.”

“What Ghastly is ever-so-eloquently trying to say,” Rover interrupted while craning his head to see her, “is that there’s a time to feel all angsty and broody, and a time to kick arse, and this is the second one.”

Valkyrie managed to find a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good,” Ghastly said, “because we’re here.”

It wasn’t dark enough to just barge in without being noticed, but they didn’t have time for anything else. Ghastly pulled up sharply by the curb and Rover shot out of the passenger seat while Tanith threw the rear door open. Valkyrie scrambled out after them and Ghastly spared a moment to turn off the engine before following. Rover went around the side of the house. Valkyrie didn’t let any of the adults try and tell her to stay back and ran for the front door beside Tanith, using her key. The moment Tanith was inside, she cleared her sword from her scabbard, glancing this way and that into the rooms they passed.

Valkyrie heard her father roar and put on extra, desperate speed. Tanith leapt onto the wall and together they shot through into the kitchen. Valkyrie saw everything in a moment. The patch of blood on the wall. The half-made lasagne on the counter and tipped over the floor. Cutlery and dishes everywhere. Her father lunging at Dusk with an upraised frying-pan. Her mother stomping on Dusk’s foot as the vampire was distracted by Tanith’s flashing sword.

Valkyrie grabbed one of the biggest kitchen knives she could find and almost stabbed Rover with it when he grabbed her arm. “Get your parents out of here,” he said. “Protect your parents, Valkyrie.”

Then he took her knife and threw it, and it stuck in Dusk’s back. He stumbled and snarled as he reached over his shoulder to yank it out. Mum wrenched herself out of his grasp and pushed. He tried to grab her again but was forced to dodge Tanith’s sword and the frying-pan, and then Rover kicked him in the face.

Valkyrie grabbed her parents’ hands and dragged them toward the door, the frying pan clanging on the floor as Dad dropped it. They almost ran into Ghastly on his way in.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded.

“He bit Fergus!” Dad burst out, and Valkyrie felt something very cold grip her chest. “He bit Fergus and then the cowboy pulled him into the _wall_!”

Ghastly cursed and pushed them into the hallway and went inside himself. Valkyrie saw the realisation in Dusk’s eyes. He was outnumbered and even though the wound wasn’t enough to stop him, he was hurt. He used a cutting-board to block Tanith’s sword, threw it at Rover, and then faced Ghastly with an eerie calm.

“If you don’t let me go now, I will be in the middle of Haggard when I turn,” he warned. Ghastly hesitated.

“Where did Sanguine take Fergus?” Rover demanded, still holding the board he’d caught.

Dusk shook his head and looked outside. “Let me go or I’ll turn. Even you Dead Men will find it hard to protect a whole town and still keep magic a secret from its residents.”

“Rover, he’s right,” Ghastly said quietly. “It’s too close to nightfall. It’s not worth the risk.”

Rover glared but stepped aside, and Dusk smiled and walked out of the house.

 

“Well, this is a pickle,” Dexter muttered as they walked back toward the Bentley, dragging Scapegrace along behind him. Scapegrace’s hands were still shackled, but Dexter had conjured a strip of duct-tape to cover his mouth and he was alternately whimpering when he stumbled and glaring when he wasn’t. There was no one around to help him. Roarhaven had been a ghost-town for decades. There were only a barest handful of people still living there, most of them around the pub, and none of them cared much about Scapegrace.

“To put it lightly,” Skulduggery said, opening the back door. Dexter shoved Scapegrace in, Skulduggery closed the door, and then they turned to one another to talk properly without Scapegrace listening.

“What now?” Dexter demanded. “The armour was gone from where you left it and unless we actually plan to murder Erskine, there’s no way we can get to the Grotesquery before Vengeous does. And that’s if we could kill him and bring back proof in time. Hypothetically speaking.” He frowned. It wasn’t an idea he particularly _liked_ , but someone had to bring it up. “We may have to ask Descry.”

“It won’t work even if we did,” said Skulduggery, “seeing as Descry’s compromised right now.”

“Compromised how?”

“He can’t read anyone’s minds except for the Dead Men,” Skulduggery said. Dexter blinked and opened his mouth, but Skulduggery went on before he could say anything. “Which is why I’m still somewhat suspicious of Guild, as Erskine has no doubt told you, though I admit Descry’s reasoning for it is sound. Still—”

“Hold the phone,” Dexter blurted. “Hopeless can’t read minds? When did this happen?”

“When do you think?” Skulduggery asked, sounding faintly miffed. “I’m not really surprised being in Serpine’s head left its mark.”

“Well, is he okay?”

Skulduggery shrugged. “As okay as he can be. He can still read your minds, as I said. I imagine the block will go away on its own once he’s had enough time to heal.”

The fact that Skulduggery wasn’t worried was enough to make Dexter relax, although he still planned on getting the skeleton back for the way he’d broken the news. That had been cruel. “So we can’t just ask him to read the Torment’s mind, then,” he muttered.

“Did you really want to, after what Serpine did?”

“No.” The Torment may not have been on Mevolent’s side during the war, but he and the other Children of the Spider were outcast for a reason. They were all but extinct, now, their numbers having declined rapidly since the end of the war. No one knew what quite what happened, but the Torment and the small band operating out of Roarhaven were all that was left. Maybe Erskine knew something about why, if the Torment wanted him dead so much. “It does mean capturing Dusk or Sanguine is next to useless, though.”

“Yes. Sanguine.” Skulduggery turned his head just slightly in the way of someone looking sidelong. “How did you say you knew each other, again?”

“I didn’t.”

“Now you’ve done it.” Skulduggery shook his head sadly. “Here I was, being polite by giving you an opening to tell me without my having to ask you directly, and you’ve thrown it back in my face.”

“You don’t have a face.”

“In my skull, then. Or my eye-sockets. It doesn’t really matter which. Dexter, how do you know Sanguine?”

“Because we’ve met before, obviously.” Skulduggery said nothing, but he stared with that unending and unmoving tilt of his skull, and Dexter sighed. “Look, he used to be Vengeous’s hitman. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not if it’s more personal than that. I hadn’t even heard of him, and now you’re telling me that not only do you know him, but he also used to be one of Vengeous’s minions during the war. If he’s as good as he’s supposed to be, they did well keeping him secret.”

“He’s not all that,” Dexter grumbled, leaning back against the side of the Bentley. “It’s just that he can’t be contained. Without his magic he’s just a thug with an accent.” He didn’t want to talk about it. He really didn’t. The problem was that it was Skulduggery asking and Skulduggery very obviously not pointing out that he had just that morning talked to Dexter about _his_ secret. Which was the point. Dexter could obfuscate with any of the other Dead Men, Hopeless aside, but with Skulduggery right now, he couldn’t.

“He went after my brother,” he said finally, staring up at the sky.

“I thought you hated your brother.”

“My _father_ was a petty bastard to top all petty bastards, but I can’t really blame my brother for how he was raised any more than you lot keep telling me that I can’t be blamed for how I was.”

“You’re too generous. As I recall, you stepped away from your clan just as soon as you realised what kind of people they were. Your brother had the same choice, and he stole your wife.”

“Thanks for that reminder, I’d forgotten that.”

“Anytime. You were saying?”

Dexter shook his head. “He contacted me during the war. Father died, I don’t know how and I don’t really care, but after he did Enda suddenly found he wasn’t prepared for a lot of things. Like actually having to lead a clan during conflict. Well, what Father always generously called a ‘clan’, anyway.”

“He asked you for advice?” Skulduggery sounded dubious. Dexter shrugged.

“He figured all the time I spent brawling with peasants might have given me some insight into how to live.”

“Well, he wasn’t wrong.”

“I told him to leave the country. He went to America.”

“Good cover.”

“That’s what I thought too. He was scared enough that he actually did it—took his wife, who was not the same wife he stole from me, if you’ll recall, and his son and left Ireland.”

“What does this have to do with Sanguine?”

Dexter looked at Skulduggery and smiled a brittle smile. “I didn’t mention we were identical twins, did I?”

For a long moment Skulduggery said nothing, but then he let out a long exhale. “Ah. That makes a lot of things make sense, actually. Sanguine killed him?”

“Enda knew he was being hunted,” said Dexter, looking down at his shoes. “He asked me for help. By the time I got there, it was too late.”

“His family?”

“Sanguine got his wife and son,” Dexter admitted, “but I managed to get his grandson away.”

“So that’s why you spend so much time over there.”

“He was mortal. He died over forty years ago. But he had a daughter before then, and she had a son too. He’s grown up now himself.”

“Oh.” For a few minutes there was silence, and Dexter watched Skulduggery sidelong, waiting for the skeleton to ask why Dexter hadn’t mentioned this to any of them. Skulduggery said nothing and did nothing, his skull tilted in such a way that Dexter knew he was looking up at the sky.

Skulduggery’s phone vibrated, loud enough to make Dexter jump. Skulduggery looked down at his pocket with a vague air of unmoving surprise and took it out to answer it. “Ghastly?”

“We have a problem,” Ghastly said through the speakerphone. “Dusk and Sanguine broke into the Edgleys’ house and took Fergus.”

“They took _Fergus_?” Dexter repeated, blinking.

“They wanted someone with the blood of the Ancients and I suppose they decided to settle for someone who wasn’t a sorcerer. Then Fergus used magic to try and rescue Desmond and Melissa, and they figured he was better than the alternative. Skulduggery, he’s been bitten.”

“Then we do have a problem,” Skulduggery said grimly, “because the Torment refused to tell us where the Grotesquery was hidden unless we gave him something we can’t afford. I’ve no idea where Vengeous might be taking either one of them.”

“But I know someone who might,” Dexter pointed out, reaching for his phone. Skulduggery looked at him.

“It’s been a long time since China’s had any input into the Baron’s plans.”

“But Bliss has a similar personality to the Baron,” Dexter said, “except he’s less fanatical. We’ll cross-reference what each of them say about where Vengeous might want to hide.”

“It could still leave us with a lot of locations.” Skulduggery stared back toward Roarhaven. It was the kind of stare, an intense if faceless stare, which Skulduggery only wore when he was thinking hard. Dexter knew one of the options going through the skeleton’s mind: Hopeless had always been their ace when there was something they needed to know. But they had to avoid that, as best as they could. Skulduggery would go through every other option first.

Saracen was a possibility, if a hit-and-miss one. There was no guarantee his magic would kick in for them to find Fergus in time. It had taken thirty years for it to lead him to Hopeless, for God’s sake.

“Dexter, hello. Whatever may I do for you this evening?” China’s smooth voice in Dexter’s ear made him turn away to let Skulduggery think.

“China, if Vengeous got the Grotesquery, where would he go to animate it?”

There was a pause. “I admit, that was not a statement I wished to hear today. Or at all. _Does_ the Baron have the Grotesquery?”

“As good as. The Torment knows but won’t tell us, and Vengeous has taken Valkyrie’s uncle. Presumably he wants him for the ritual.”

“For the blood of the Ancients, I imagine.”

“One day, I’m going to find out how you do that.”

China laughed. It was light, but there was an edge to the sound. “One day, perhaps. Have you asked Ravel?”

Dexter frowned. “Asked Ravel what?”

The sudden silence on the other end was almost frightening. Then China said, “Never mind.There are any number of places Vengeous might go, but since he’s limited to Ireland, that shortens the list considerably. Have you got a pen?”

Dexter conjured a notebook and a pen, and held them poised. “Go ahead.”

There were four locations on China’s list. It was still too many. By the time Dexter hung up Skulduggery was already on the phone to Mr Bliss. Skulduggery nodded at him as he listened, writing on a bit of paper.

“Ghastly and Rover are taking the Edgleys back to Gordon’s,” Skulduggery said as he hung up.

“I’ll bet they’re all happy about that. Gordon included.”

“He’ll live.” Skulduggery paused. “Or not, as the case may be, but either way the point is moot. It’s the safest place for all of them—” Dexter couldn’t help it. He laughed, bitterly, and Skulduggery inclined his head to acknowledge the reaction while continuing. “—and even if Vengeous has Fergus he may decide Fergus isn’t magical enough for his purposes.”

“This is what China came up with.” Dexter showed him the list. Skulduggery pointed to three of the names.

“Bliss had those on his as well. And that one is in Northern Ireland—he’d want to be somewhere within reasonable distance of Dublin. Chances are, it’s one of the last two.”

“There’s only two of _us_ , Skulduggery. If we split up, there won’t be time for the other to come in as backup. And the Dead Men don’t split up once we’ve started a mission together.”

“One, we didn’t start a mission together. You and I were hired. Two, that’s why I’m going to call the only man in the world with a comprehensive world-map of ley-lines,” Skulduggery said, already punching the button to Anton’s speed-dial. “Vengeous is trying to resurrect a _god_. The location has to be hidden, but it’s going to be important in other ways most people don’t bother to consider.”

“No one bothers to consider the leys.” Dexter exhaled slowly and shoved the page into his pocket, trying to force the tension to leave his body. He glanced back into the car. Scapegrace was lying across the backseat, looking profoundly unhappy. “I don’t suppose we have time to make a delivery first.”

“I rather doubt it.”

Dexter shrugged. “Well, at least we have cannon fodder.”

 

Valkyrie was fairly sure parts of her were going numb, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask her mother to loosen her grip. That had been too close. It had been past too close.

While Mum had barely moved since Tanith had sat them both down on the sofa, Dad didn’t seem to be able to sit still. He kept pacing up and down the room. Occasionally he would stop and stare at some trinket or another, his expression that one of angry grief he wore when he was thinking of Gordon and how he was murdered. Then, just as suddenly, he would start as if coming out of a dream and go back to pacing.

Nobody felt like eating anymore, so Tanith had packed up the food and stuck it in Gordon’s fridge while Rover and Ghastly secured the house. Valkyrie sat quietly, letting her mother hold her in a death grip. Rover’s words kept running through her head.

_“Get your parents out of here. Protect your parents, Valkyrie.”_

What could she have done, really? Against Dusk? She had no idea what vampires were truly like until that morning. If it weren’t for the Dead Men she wouldn’t have stood a chance either times, and now her uncle was having who-knew-what done to him.

Rover came back and spotted her expression, and wagged a finger at her. “Uh-uh, princess. Remember what we said about a time and a place?”

Valkyrie scowled. “There are no vampires to kick. I think now is the time for brooding.”

“True, but then there’s that other part. About it not being your fault.”

Her mother’s grip tightened. Valkyrie was aware of it, but didn’t look away from Rover. “They were supposed to be after _me_.”

“Don’t you dare say it would have been better if he’d taken you instead,” said her mother fiercely.

Valkyrie bit her lip and looked down and didn’t answer, but her mother’s grasp grew so tight it made Valkyrie wince. “Stephanie, you are thirteen years old. Just because you’re learning magic doesn’t immediately make you responsible for everyone else. That’s the point of _learning_. Wouldn’t you rather be depending on a policeman who’s already qualified?”

“That’s different.”

“It’s exactly the same,” said her father suddenly, turning around from the painting he hadn’t been examining. “That’s why people go to school for so many years, Steph. Some things take a long time to learn. It isn’t responsible for someone to expect you to be able to do things it takes years to learn when you’ve only been learning for _one_. And it isn’t responsible to expect the same of yourself.”

She looked up at him, at his pale, serious face and his clenched fists. Her mother relaxed her grip and then gave her a squeeze. “We don’t think less of you for it, either. You’re still our Stephanie.”

Valkyrie looked down at her hands, feeling embarrassed and ashamed and confused and loved, but most of all very, very young. “But I’d think less of myself.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Dad said, sounding firm and uncomfortable at once.

“There’s such a thing as over-compensation, you know,” Rover added, leaning on the back of the sofa and tugging her hair. “Sure, you can have stupidly high expectations of yourself, but then you’ll always be disappointed when you don’t get there. Where’s the fun in that?” He grinned and waggled his fingers suddenly. “That’s why I make sure no one has any expectations of me at all. That way I can surprise them!”

Valkyrie batted away his hand, but she was laughing. “Okay, okay! I get the point.”

“Oh, good. Now hold up your hand and repeat after me.” He laid a hand over his heart and held up the other. Valkyrie crossed her arms. Quick as a flash, Rover reached out and tugged her hair again. “Come on, come on, repeat!” With a roll of her eyes Valkyrie obeyed. “I, insert name here, do solemnly vow not to take myself so seriously, to set myself reasonable goals and above all give Rover hugs every Friday.”

“I, Valkyrie Cain, do solemnly vow not to take myself so seriously, to set myself reasonable goals, and above all kick Rover’s butt every Friday.”

Rover shrugged. “Close enough.”                                                     

“The butt-kicking will probably be good practice for you,” Ghastly added as he came into the living-room.

“Which one?” Dad asked with a bemused smile.

Ghastly shrugged. “Take your pick. Rover’s easy.”

“I am,” Rover agreed. “I’m very easy. Where have you been, Bespoke?”

“I wanted to look into something,” Ghastly admitted quietly.

“But Tanith’s right here,” Rover said, pointing to where she was sitting on an armchair and oiling her sword. Both of them immediately went red and, Valkyrie saw with interest, refused to look at each other.

“The Sceptre is still downstairs,” Ghastly said.

There was a moment of silence. Valkyrie’s heart skipped a beat. Then abruptly her father spoke. “No.”

“It might be able to lead us to Fergus,” Ghastly said, and Dad hesitated. Then he shook his head, half defiant and half afraid.

“If Skulduggery is as good a detective as you all say he is, he’ll find Fergus,” he said. “But he wouldn’t want to be found like that and Gordon hid it for a reason. We’ve not touching it. Not ever.”

Valkyrie stared with surprised awe at her father’s pale but determined face. Ghastly looked at him for a moment too, and then nodded. “Alright.”

Valkyrie’s mum unfolded from the sofa and went to her husband to hug him and kiss him on the cheek. “That’s my Desmond. You’re wonderful, dear.”

Dad grinned rather shakily. “I am, aren’t I?”

Without a word Valkyrie stood up and went over and hugged them both, and Dad shifted so she was sandwiched between them. Suddenly it felt very stupid and young to care about what she couldn’t do yet. Her dad couldn’t use magic and he was still one of the most wonderful people she knew.

“Aww, lemme get my camera.” Valkyrie peered around her mother to glare at Rover.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Of course I’d dare.” He laughed and came around to nudge them, as a group, toward the sofa. “And step, and shuffle, and step, and shuffle, and sit …”

Together the Edgleys sat down on the sofa to wait.


	11. China Sorrows

“Is this a good idea?” Saracen asked as Erskine helped him through the Hibernian door.

“What, going after Vengeous and the armour without the faintest idea of where they are?”

“No, sneaking out of Kenspeckle’s lab without his knowing about it.” Saracen peered over his shoulder with affected fear. “What if he catches us? What if next time we need him, he refuses? Or worse, makes me wear the pink hospital gown with the elephants and bunnies?”

Erskine let out a startled laugh. “When did you get the opportunity to see whether he has a pink hospital gown with elephants and bunnies?”

“He has one. I just know it.”

“There are times when I think you’re lying about the things you ‘just know’,” Erskine grumbled.

“I’m hurt, Ravel. I’m hurt a lot. Especially since you know how it works. You’re lucky I haven’t told Dex you know just to get him off my back.”

“You will be hurt a lot, if Vengeous sees you again. Or worse.”

“I still am after the last time.” Saracen winced, and it wasn’t quite an exaggeration. His face was still somewhere between ashen and green, his eyes sunken. It wasn’t often it took more than one blow for Vengeous to rupture someone to death, but from the few times it had happened Erskine knew the injuries were difficult to heal. Something in the magic resisted it.

Which was why very few people actually _survived_ Vengeous trying to rupture them to death, whether they died instantly or a few hours later.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Erskine asked, and then followed up with, “do you know how we’re going to _get there_?”

Part of him winced at the question. There was something he could do. There was definitely something he could do, if he only left Saracen with Kenspeckle. But he wouldn’t get there in time. He couldn’t drive well enough to get there in time. There wasn’t any point. Ergo, letting Saracen decide.

“I figured we’d take a taxi to the Sanctuary.”

“If Skulduggery and Dexter have already called in, reinforcements have probably already left.”

“If they have, Vengeous could know about that too. There’s a traitor in the Sanctuary, remember?”

Oh. Right. Erskine actually _had_ forgotten, because that was the sort of thing Hopeless always knew. Except that he wouldn’t know it now, and therefore they would actually have to be careful. “Skulduggery wouldn’t have asked for reinforcements, then,” he said grimly. “Not from the Sanctuary.”

Ghastly had called them earlier. He, Rover and Tanith were guarding the Edgleys, though Tanith had a motorbike. If anyone could get from Dublin to wherever fast, she’d be the best bet. Same with Anton; contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t locked into specific locations. There were specific locations he took the Hotel so people would know where to find him, but he really only needed a crossing of two leys to set the Hotel’s foundation. Which meant he could go nearly anywhere, allowing for a bit of judicious editing of the sigils powering the Hotel’s pathways.

Saracen wavered. Erskine paused to lean him against a lamp-post to catch his breath, and looked around. It was just getting dark, so there were still people on the streets. After having finally, and sheepishly, given up on learning to drive (shortly after crashing Hopeless’s old truck into his new, parked truck and totalling them both), Erskine had become extremely well acquainted with the taxi-drivers of Dublin.

He flagged one down and within about twenty minutes they had reached the old Waxworks. Saracen leaned on him as they came in through the back entrance. He still looked green, and Erskine was beginning to regret bringing him. He moved as fast as possible, eager to get the idiot sitting down in Hopeless’s office.

They passed enough people that Erskine had to wonder if the Sanctuary ever actually shut up for the night, or if everyone involved were secretly some sub-species of vampire. “I bet they are,” he said to Saracen. “All politicians are bloodsuckers. I bet the whole Sanctuary staff was secretly infected with some mutant strain of vampirism so they don’t turn at night, and now they don’t eat or sleep and just keep on working. Descry’s in danger. We should probably rescue him before it’s too late.”

“That,” Saracen said, “or someone has replaced them all with robots. That would actually explain a lot. Descry isn’t really having blockages at all.”

They were nearly to the Elders’ offices when they were accosted by the new Administrator. The new Administrator who had unfortunately proven herself apparently immune to Erskine’s wiles. She even proved herself immune to Saracen’s ‘damaged hero’ look and the way he sagged on Erskine’s shoulder.

“He needs to sit down,” Erskine told her for the umpteenth time. “In a quiet room.”

“There are quiet parlours off the entrance hall,” she said. “I can show you to one of them. The Elders aren’t to be disturbed.”

Erskine bit back the urge to say that one of those Elders was Saracen’s _father_ , damn it, and decided to change tacks. He squinted at her. “Exactly how _old_ are you?”

She stiffened. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, you’re failing to realise that Hopeless is an old war-buddy of ours, so either you’re too young to have heard the stories about us, or so old that you just don’t—”

Hopeless cleared his throat from behind her, just down the hall. The Administrator jumped and whirled around, and Erskine grinned at him in relief. Hopeless shook his head, but he was smiling slightly as he stepped forward to hand a couple of envelopes to him. They were unsealed, so with one hand Erskine managed to get one open, read it, and then grin at the Administrator to flap it in her face. “ _Hah._ I win.”

The page was sealed and signed by Hopeless, and read: _‘The bearer of this document, Erskine Ravel, has full access to the Elder offices until further notice.’_

“This isn’t official,” protested the Administrator, holding the page at arm’s length and wrinkling her nose.

“Of course it is,” said Erskine. “It’s signed and sealed by an Elder. Look, Saracen got one too. Excuse me, we have an appointment.” He snatched back the hall-pass and sidled past her. Saracen, no longer swooning on his shoulder, ambled along beside him and waggled his fingers at her with a grin. Hopeless, shaking his head and laughing silently, turned to lead them down the hall and around the corner to his office.

“Thank God,” Erskine groaned as he staggered into the office. “I’m exhausted. This is exhausting, having to lug Saracen around everywhere. We need a dog-sled.”

“Hey, I’m the walking wounded here,” Saracen grumbled, shoving away from Erskine and limping to the wonderfully comfortable-looking sofa behind the door. He sank into it with a groan. “Say what you want about Meritorious, he had wonderful taste in furniture.”

Hopeless’s mouth quirked upward, but Erskine saw that his eyes were serious, even wary. The redhead closed the door and laid a hand by the knob, and a sigil flared under his palm.

“What was that?” Erskine asked, leaning back against the desk.

‘Privacy sigil,’ Hopeless signed. ‘No one will be able to hear us from outside.’

Erskine blinked. “I didn’t even know they existed.” Why hadn’t Morwenna been using it earlier, if it did?

‘I’m not sure Guild does either.’

Which would explain why Morwenna wasn’t using it, if she didn’t want Guild to find out. Hopeless’s phrasing made a prickle run down Erskine’s back, and he moved on quickly. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the Administrator,” Saracen said. “The Administrator is the traitor.”

That prickle turned into a full-blown shiver. “She what? How do you—what did she do?”

“She was trying too hard to keep us from seeing Descry. I wanted to know why. Now I do.” Saracen smiled that small but tired, and somewhat lopsided, smile which he shared with his father. “The trouble is that we haven’t got the faintest bit of proof.”

“ _You_ know it. That’s proof enough.”

‘It won’t be for Guild,’ Hopeless pointed out. ‘And Morwenna’s position is too tenuous to ask her to rely on the integrity of Saracen’s magic alone. If the other Sanctuaries get wind that we’ve reduced our justice system to the word of a man whose magic they don’t understand—’

“They’ll get out the torches and pitchforks,” Erskine finished, and wagged his finger at Saracen. “I bet you didn’t expect _this_ when you said we should figure out the traitor while Fergus is getting rescued.”

Saracen shrugged. “I was hoping something like this would happen. I just didn’t think it would be so blatantly obvious. Or sudden. Or, you know, the Administrator.”

“But it does make perfect sense. Who hired her, again?”

‘Guild,’ Hopeless signed with an ironic twist to his mouth. ‘She’s more in line with his thinking than anyone Morwenna would have preferred.’

“She was a concession, wasn’t she?”

_‘Yes. Morwenna already warned me she was on Guild’s side, but she didn’t suspect anything like this.’_

“Well, that’s just wonderful,” said Erskine. “The first new Council of Elders in nearly a century, and it’s split in two just because Morwenna used to have dubious affiliations.” He said it far more darkly than he meant to, and shot a quick look at Hopeless.

Hopeless shrugged in that manner he did when he knew something he was quite deliberately not talking about. Which he probably was. So he couldn’t read Morwenna’s mind right now—he’d still been reading her mind for a century. She’d been a high-ranking cleric before she left the Temple. Whatever their most secret mysteries were, Hopeless knew them.

And he still trusted her more than he trusted Guild. That said something.

“I can tell Corrival,” Erskine said. “He won’t like being yanked into all this again, but if we need a scapegoat to trigger an investigation, he might be able to help. Otherwise.” He grinned darkly and flapped the envelope. “You _did_ give me access to the Council’s offices. That includes the Administrator’s office, right?”

Hopeless was smiling. ‘It does. But if she finds you in there, she won’t bother to use the law to get you out.’

“Hey, it’s not like she’s Tanith or anything.”

‘No, but she did used to be one of China’s students.’

“Oh?” Erskine’s grin fell and then came back more cutting than before. “Really? Fancy that. I changed my mind. I think I should go pay China a visit.” He pointed at Saracen. “ _You_ are going to stay here. Kenspeckle can’t tell us off if you’re taking bed-rest in your daddy’s office.”

“He can when he doesn’t know Descry _is_ my daddy.”

“We’ll say he adopted you.” Erskine hopped off the desk as Hopeless touched the sigil to open the door. “Keep me in the loop. I’ll see you soon.” He saluted with his hall-pass and left in search of China Sorrows.

 

The thing about China Sorrows was that there were a lot of things to keep in mind about China Sorrows. She was beautiful and she used that beauty like a weapon. Erskine didn’t have any issues with that in and of itself, because good looks could be a weapon just like strength or smarts. He used it the same way.

It was the fact that she used her beauty in combination with her magic to actively usurp someone’s will. The first time they met he’d compared her to a vampire and she had pointed out that her magic was fairly easily resisted. He’d been able to accept that, for the sake of working against Mevolent.

For a while.

Erskine entered the library without bothering to knock, and paused for a moment to look around. In spite of the melee just earlier that day, the library looked in good nick. There was a pot-plant and a specific bookcase missing, true, but the other cases had been righted and their books replaced, and there was no evidence whatsoever of Sanguine’s exits. China herself was standing in the middle of the floor, critically eyeing the space left by the missing shelves.

“Hello, China,” Erskine said pleasantly but with a mocking edge in his smile.

She turned to look at him with an answering and equally velveted smile. Her eyes flickered to the side to take in the empty space behind him. It was the nearest thing to surprise she’d show. Erskine Ravel rarely came to the library, and then only in the company of someone else.

“Erskine, what a lovely surprise,” said China lightly. “To what do I owe this honour?”

“I suppose you missed the Baron tearing your library apart?”

“On the contrary. I simply live in hope you’ll come to visit without the benefit of the world ending as an excuse.” She smiled at him sweetly, too sweetly, and the corresponding whisper to give in only made him feel like someone had rubbed him with sandpaper.

“Don’t bother, then,” he snapped, and moved deeper into the library, glancing across the cases that had toppled earlier that morning. It was petty, but he found himself looking for new nicks to point out. “I want to know about the Administrator. I heard she was one of your students.”

“Hardly,” China scoffed. “A hanger-on would be more accurate. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you everything you want to know—for a price.” She didn’t bother to smile winningly. Cunningly, maybe, and even then it was faint. But at least she had stopped with her innocent façade, and her eyes were serious and wary. She knew better than to press him too hard for a price. Not after the last time.

Last time was the reason he could have gotten away with some information without paying her anything. But that would have meant raising it as a topic, and Erskine wanted that as much as China did. Which was to say, not at all. So he had come with a back-up plan. Without a word Erskine held up a pocket-watch, gold and monogrammed. China lifted an elegant eyebrow. “How quaint. There _are_ some jewellers who still make pocket-watches, you know. Why should I be interested in this one?”

Erskine let the chain run through his fingers until the watch dangled from it, and smiled. “This is your brother’s watch.”

China went very still, her gaze on the watch as it spun lazily, slowly revealing the crest on the back. “How very … suicidal of you. Where did you get it?”

“Pinched it from his pocket on the way up the stairs this morning.”

“I was under the impression that Larrikin was the petty thief among the Dead Men.”

“He’s taught me one or two things that have proven useful.” With a light tug Erskine brought the watch back up and palmed it, making sure not to break China’s gaze. “So? Payment enough?”

“I think it might just be,” China said evenly, and turned around to walk to her desk. “Drink?”

“No,” Erskine said shortly. “Stop dissembling.”

“Simply being polite.” China turned and favoured him with a smile that made his heart beat faster. Erskine crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “The Administrator’s name is Anise Harken. She is actually an Elemental, so I’ve no idea where you got the impression that I taught her.”

“Hopeless said so.”

Erskine smiled sunnily at the way China’s mouth tightened. There were very few secrets China Sorrows could not discover. Hopeless was one of her biggest failures. She knew what he was, oh yes—but not because she had discovered it on her own merit. She’d done it through blackmail at a time when only someone lacking a heart would try, pure and simple. Hopeless was her biggest failure because she hadn’t taken him seriously, and so she had never been able to gain the advantage of him.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Hopeless was possibly the only man in the world who could control China Sorrows. So, naturally, being Hopeless, he chose not to.

“Of course he did,” she said evenly, and went smoothly on. “As I said, she was never actually a _student_. She has, I admit, some aptitude, but simply can’t bear to be wrong.”

“Sounds like your perfect match,” Erskine said with an edged smile which China returned.

“Erskine, dear, I dislike being proven wrong because I am very rarely wrong. Harken, on the other hand, has neither the talent nor the adaptability to enforce her claims. She simply couldn’t _learn_. She would cause rows in the library and on several occasions attempted to correct my own work.”

“How rude of her.”

“Quite. I even caught her trying to edit my own wards.” China shrugged gracefully. “In the end I had to forbid her from my library.”

“I’m sure that went over well.”

“Not particularly, but I really don’t care. She hasn’t appeared at my door to be a pebble in my shoe for somewhere in the vicinity of a decade. She even left Ireland for some time, I believe.”

Erskine straightened up. “Where did she go?”

“It didn’t matter to me enough to find out.”

“But you _do_ know.” Erskine smiled at her again, that dark smile. “China Sorrows doesn’t neglect rivals.”

“Rival?” China laughed. “Hardly. I didn’t bother to _find out_ , but I did happen to discover—quite by accident—that she went to America.”

A trickle of that cold, adrenal awareness ran down Erskine’s spine. Sanguine was from America, and had apparently spent the time since the war’s end in hiding, biding his time. It was impossible not to see the connection there. “Exactly what was her interest in the language of magic, anyway?”

“Rituals,” China said simply, meeting his gaze without obfuscation but with a tiny furrow in her brow. “She was always most interested in seals and rituals.”


	12. Blood and shadows

Fergus’s neck hurt. A lot. At first he couldn’t quite remember why and lay where he was, blearily trying to make his eyes focus. His head was swimming and he wasn’t sure why that was either, but it almost sounded like someone was trying to speak to him, just from too far away.

“He’s awake,” someone said, someone cold and almost disinterested, someone who sounded vaguely familiar for more reasons than one. A hand gripped the back of his shirt and hauled him upright, and Fergus cried out at the pain searing through his neck and shoulder and chest, trying not to either pass out or throw up. Either one, he thought, would be very, very bad.

Someone took his chin and made him look up, and Fergus swallowed hard. He really didn’t think the dignified man with the extremely cold look in his eyes would appreciate Fergus being sick all over him.

“Do you hear me?” asked the man. Trying not to whimper, Fergus nodded once. “Do you know who I am?”

Fergus felt his throat work before he was able to whisper, “The Baron.”

Baron Vengeous smiled. It didn’t make his expression look any better. “Good. You’re fortunate, Dusk. I would have been very put out had he been Infected after all.”

“I said he wouldn’t be.” Dusk’s voice came from right behind Fergus’s shoulder, and a violent, painful chill ran through Fergus as he realised how close the vampire was to his neck once more. The Baron looked evenly past Fergus’s face, and even though it was directed elsewhere it made Fergus shiver again.

“Yet,” said the Baron, “you still risked contaminating our sacrifice to the Faceless Ones.”

Something icy dropped from Fergus’s chest down into his gut, and it spread through him in a numbing sensation that would have been relieving if he weren’t certain he was about to die.

“Sacrifice?” he asked, and was surprised when his voice came out raw instead of a squeak. He regretted saying anything at all when the Baron shifted his gaze back to him.

“Fergus Edgley, is it? You are about to receive the highest of honours. Your blood will revive a god.”

“Can I pass on the blood-letting?” Fergus asked weakly. The Baron laughed.

“Not in the least. If you were a true sorcerer like your niece, we could have afforded to let you live. Or at least not killed you for the sake of the ritual. Unfortunately for you, all accounts say you don’t know much more than parlour tricks, with no intention of anything more.” He smiled in a fatherly but viciously patronising way. “If the Dead Men had not tried so hard to protect her, the both of you would still be alive by the time this ritual’s over. Carry that thought with you into your death, son of the Betrayers.”

He turned away and Dusk forced Fergus to follow, and it was only then that Fergus saw where they were. It was a cold, dank church. There were still a few pews that hadn’t rotted away, and there were hundreds of lit candles that sent the shadows dancing and pirouetting across the walls. The altar had been ransacked and cleared, replaced with a large slab, solid and proud, and upon that slab was a massive, bandaged body covered in a sheet. From the vague shapes and parts Fergus _could_ see, it was a mishmash of creatures Fergus had never imagined existed.

There were others in the church, men and women with blank eyes and bloodied necks. They stayed in the shadows as best as they could, but something in the way they moved made the hairs rise on the back of Fergus’s neck. It was like Dusk moved, but as if they were still learning, alien in their own skin. Sanguine was sprawled in one of the pews, and he waved when he saw Fergus looking.

The Baron moved away into the corner. He was dressed in oddly supple black clothes. There was another table there, and reverently he reached out to pick up a black helmet whose consistency wasn’t quite solid. There were other pieces of armour on that table, all with the same kind of texture, and when the Baron touched just one piece shadows rose off it like steam.

Fergus did not want to see what would happen if Vengeous put that armour on. He glanced toward the door. There was a roomful of—Infected?—between him and the exit, and Dusk still had his arm. Even without taking all that into account, Fergus was dizzy and his neck hurt, and he was aware of the bandage that had been stuck on. It was big and bulky, and chafed his jaw whenever he moved his head.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked Sanguine with a sort of desperate need to hear something familiar, even his own voice. He had never meant to become involved in all of this, in sorcery. His friendship with Rover was the nearest he had been willing to come, and even that had been _un_ willing at first.

“Me?” Sanguine looked up from where he was flipping his blade end over end, looking vaguely surprised to have to be asked. He shrugged. “You know how it is, with beliefs and religion and all that stuff. Nothing too hard, nothing too much to ask, prove your faith etcetera. Stuff of wars, it is. You hear about the war?”

Fergus swallowed. “Larrikin told me about it.”

Not many details, but still. Sanguine sneered. “ _Larrikin._ Those Dead Men. Thought they owned the whole war, they did. They ain’t so great.” He sounded bitter, but Fergus couldn’t imagine why, and a moment later he perked up. “Bet the looks on their faces when Dusk walked out were worth rememberin’, though.”

The words made Fergus’s stomach twist. “What do you mean?”

“Right, you were all fainted when he came back.” In any other circumstance, if he’d been anyone else, the smugness of Sanguine’s expression would have made Fergus want to punch him. “’Parently after we took our leave, Bespoke and Larrikin went and showed up to rescue your mortals in distress. ’Course they had to let him go, being too close to night and him ready to turn in the middle of your village, and all.”

The twist got tighter, and came with a chill. Automatically Fergus turned to look at Dusk behind him, but then his wound complained and he whimpered instead. Even then he could see the very human hand gripping his upper arm. “But—he’s—”

“Got special medicine to stop him from turning,” Sanguine said, and his grin widened. “The Dead Men didn’t know that, did they? Wish he’d taken pictures.”

“Enough,” said someone in a hollow, rasping voice. Fergus jumped and then swayed dizzily, and almost passed out from the pain. When his vision cleared what he saw was a black-armoured monstrosity, looking at him with what he felt was cold amusement. “Bring him, Dusk.”

Fergus expected to feel terrified. And he did. But at those words numbness settled over him, not exactly dulling the pain but making it inconsequential. Dusk pushed him toward the altar and Fergus stumbled, then was yanked impatiently upright. The world spun around him, so much so that when he sagged against Dusk, trying not to pass out, he thought he was imagining the shimmer of a door at the back of the church.

He swasn’t sure it was real even when he heard a smooth voice say, “Ah, I’m not too late. My invitation got lost, and I admit I wasn’t sure about the venue.”

The only reason Fergus knew Pleasant was actually there was because Sanguine yelped and whirled around like he’d been stuck with a hot poker. “What the—how did you get here?!”

“I drove,” Pleasant said in a tone that said he thought Sanguine was an idiot for asking.

Sanguine glared. “I mean how did you _find_ us?”

“We _are_ detectives,” said Dexter Vex with a brilliant smile as he stepped through his doorway and closed it behind him. It might have been Fergus’s imagination, but he rather thought that smile was somehow vicious too. “Hi, Billy-Ray. Still trailing after the big dogs, I see.”

Sanguine hadn’t looked happy to see Pleasant, but at Vex he scowled and crossed his arms. “Look who’s talkin’. You ever gonna take care of your own business, or just let your big brothers take care of things?”

“Ah,” said Skulduggery. “You probably shouldn’t have said that, but since you’re a bad guy, I’m not going to take responsibility for what Dexter does in response.”

Vex’s smile changed. It wasn’t brilliant anymore, but darkly cutting. “Because I’m an honourable man, I’m going to give you a warning: I’m going to break your face.”

“Try it,” Sanguine said, but Vex was already moving, faster than Fergus has seen him move before. He leapt forward and his fist flew, and then Sanguine rocked back with a yell even as he sank into the floor. Fergus stumbled as Dusk yanked him closer, and the awful numbness vanished in a wave of new terror as he felt the vampire’s breath on the good side of his neck.

“Restrain yourselves, or Edgley dies,” said the Baron. Dexter Vex stopped short, but didn’t look at Vengeous. Fergus thought he looked rather pale, but that could have been the light. Sanguine stepped out of the wall, glaring and cupping his nose.

“You won’t kill him,” Pleasant said with confidence. “You need him.”

The Baron held something up, something small and incongruous in the large gauntlet, and Fergus’s stomach flipped over. It was his wallet, which he’d unthinkingly put in his pocket with his keys before he left the house. Inside the leather, where the plastic ID section was, was a picture of Beryl and the twins. “Do I? Tell me, Edgley, do your wife and daughters know you’re a sorcerer?”

Fergus wet his lips, croaked an unintelligible answer, swallowed hard and tried again. “I’m not a sorcerer.”

“I doubt they’ll know the difference, or care,” said the Baron. “Your wife is meaningless, but your daughters are descendants of the Ancients just the same as you.”

Ice clutched at his stomach. “If you go near them I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” The Baron sounded amused.

“He’ll insult your dress-sense, of course,” said Dexter. The way Vengeous looked at him was slow and made all the more intimidating for the fact that the armour made no sound as it moved. Dexter crossed his arms. “You’ve always had awful dress-sense, but come on. A necromancer’s armour? A necromancer who’s in all likelihood _dead_? Call me crazy, but there’s something really tacky about digging up a dead guy’s armour to make it your main fashion ensemble.” He shook his head with such genuine despair that Fergus choked.

“Dexter,” Skulduggery said, “you’re crazy.”

Dexter shrugged. “I just call ’em as I see ’em.”

“You seek to distract me by calling forth past humiliations,” Vengeous said in a low voice which echoed endlessly among the shadows. “You’re a fool. There are only two of you. Even you will be hard pressed to fight off all these Infected, and in the meantime I will raise a _god_.”

“That would be a good idea,” Skulduggery said pleasantly.

“But you’re overlooking one thing,” Dexter added, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Him.”

Fergus looked. Everyone in the church looked. Dusk was so close behind him that Fergus felt him stiffen, but it wasn’t until a shadow detached itself from the doorjamb that Fergus saw that anyone was there. Anton Shudder moved down the aisle with the quiet, measured pace of a man with very little to fear and stopped about halfway.

“Oh, God damn it,” said Sanguine. Anton looked up at him and smiled.

Fergus had only met Shudder once or twice before last year, and always found him much more agreeable company than the rest of the Dead Men, so long as magic wasn’t brought up. Even the year before, as terrifying as the gist had been, Anton had been eminently business-like. But right now there was something so dark and vicious in his smile that he was almost as frightening as Dusk. The way Sanguine reacted brought to Fergus’s mind the way the gist had torn easily through the Hollow Men as if they were nothing.

“Now then,” Skulduggery said to the Baron, “you can let us leave quietly or we can have Anton unleash his gist. True, you might succeed in killing Fergus first. True, given everything else Anton has to slaughter you yourself might be okay for now. But will the Grotesquery?”

For a long moment no one said anything at all. Then the Baron said at last, “Take him.”

With a snarl of displeasure more vibration than sound, Dusk shoved Fergus at Dexter and Skulduggery. He stumbled, but Dexter caught him around the waist and steadied him until his dizziness faded.

“Fergus Edgley,” said the Baron, and there was a ring of something magical in his voice. “At the first opportunity, you will return to this place and bring your niece with you.”

Dexter swore. Sanguine laughed. “Have fun protectin’ your pet from her own uncle.”

Fergus rather felt like laughing too. He caught his breath and straightened, and found himself smiling up at Baron Vengeous. “Get her yourself.”

There was a rather startled pause. Fergus took vindictive delight in the surprise on Sanguine’s face. Then it was Skulduggery who was laughing. “You’re going to find the Edgleys more of a challenge than you thought, Baron. We’ll be seeing you later, I’m sure.”

He turned and led the way down the aisle toward Anton, who waited for them before following them out. Fergus leaned heavily on Dexter to combat the dizziness, and even though it wasn’t completely dark yet the twilight seemed absurdly bright. Against his will Fergus made a noise of objection, turning his face away.

He felt Dexter look at him. “Dusk can’t turn people when he hasn’t shed his skin, right?”

“No,” said Shudder, “but we should get him to Professor Grouse.”

“Not yet,” said Skulduggery without looking around. “As soon as they think we’ve gone Vengeous will pack up the Grotesquery and take it somewhere else, presumably to victimise some other poor fool. Dexter?”

“Oh goody. I get to steal from Baron Vengeous.”

“I thought you’d appreciate the padding on your resume, since Saracen stole your original qualifications.”

“I don’t know, I think those are the kinds of qualifications I’d prefer to keep up my sleeve.”

Fergus found himself being passed off from Dexter to Anton, who had enough extra height to make being propped up by him more inconvenient. At this point, Fergus really didn’t care. The short walk had left him dizzy and nauseous, and being taken to a doctor, even a magical doctor, sounded like the most wonderful idea in the world. He knew that Dexter had left them for somewhere, but he wasn’t quite sure how they got to the Bentley before they were already there.

“For the record,” Skulduggery told him as he opened the back door, “if you throw up in my car you’re paying for the cleaning bill.”

Fergus managed to chuckle as he crawled into the seat. “No promises, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. Seatbelt.”

Fergus buckled in and sank back into the seat, but he was barely conscious as the Bentley pulled away, the soft rumble of its engine a comforting purr in the background of a terrifying night.

 

Valkyrie was dozing against her mother, vaguely aware of Ghastly and Tanith talking quietly across the room, when the noisy jingle of _Spooky Scary Skeletons_ made her sit suddenly upright. Her dad groaned. “Turn off the radio.”

“It’s Skulduggery.” Valkyrie peeled her eyes open long enough to see Ghastly throw a Look at Rover, who looked at the ceiling and whistled, and then put his phone to his ear. “How did it go?”

Dad sat up. Mum opened her eyes and shifted Valkyrie in her arms so she could look toward the tailor. The Edgleys couldn’t hear Skulduggery’s reply, but they saw Ghastly relax suddenly, almost smiling. That smile morphed almost instantly into startle, consternated exasperation, followed by resignation. “Of course you did. Of course _he_ did. He’s lucky he’s not there for me to hand him over to Rover.” A pause. “I’ll let them know. In the meantime, I got word from Erskine and Saracen.” Another pause. “Saracen tried to escape Kenspeckle. He’s since changed his mind. He can tell you all about it when you get there. See you soon.”

He lowered his phone and turned to the rest of them and smiled.

“What did my wife get himself into?” Rover demanded before Ghastly could say anything. Ghastly sighed.

“He stole the truck the Grotesquery was in out from under Vengeous’s nose.”

Rover stared and then shook his head. “Of course he did. And you lot say I’m the crazy one.”

“It’s your influence.” Ghastly turned to the Edgleys. “Fergus is okay. Skulduggery and Anton are taking him to the Hibernian. What do you say we go and—”

“Yes,” said Dad, already standing up. “Yes, let’s go. I need to tell off my brother for not taking his own advice about not getting into trouble.”


	13. Elephants and bunnies

“He’s just doing that for my benefit, isn’t he?” Saracen whispered at Hopeless from his bed, trying to peer across the room at Kenspeckle without actually sitting up and incurring the doctor’s wrath. Hopeless shrugged and pushed him back down even though he’d only raised himself about an inch. “Well? Is he?”

Hopeless sent him the patented Hopeless expression which meant, ‘I know the answer to this question, but what makes you think I’m going to tell _you_?’

“You’d think you were my father,” Saracen grumbled, but Erskine knew it was only because he knew _Hopeless_ knew Saracen was sort-of secretly feeling relieved about not having to pretend to be better than he was. It wasn’t that he’d been lying to Erskine, earlier. It was just that he hadn’t realised Kenspeckle’s treatments hadn’t finished, and certain holes in certain internal organs had opened up again under the influence of magic that just wouldn’t quit.

It was still stupid and he still deserved a lecture.

“If that’s true you can assume I’m your father too,” Erskine grumbled. “Or maybe your mother. You’re lucky you were with Descry and Descry knows what internal injuries feel like firsthand. I’d have been really annoyed if I had to explain to Rover _and_ Dex how their play-toy got broken.”

“Yes, well, that’s your problem.” Saracen tried to lift his head, just a little, to see Kenspeckle. Since they’d come back to the Hibernian and the professor had ordered Saracen to bed, he had been hunched in that corner muttering to himself in an older dialect of Irish which Erskine could barely understand and knew Saracen couldn’t at all, mixing foul-smelling brews with a fiendish delight that really set Saracen on edge.

Hopeless patted his head and signed, _‘_ Cheer up. He hasn’t put you in the pink hospital gown with elephants and bunnies yet.’

“But is he _planning_ to?” Saracen demanded. Hopeless just smiled and shrugged. “You’re having far too much fun with this.”

Hopeless looked down at him, wearing that other expression that was especially his just because he was the only current father among the Dead Men. The one he only wore _around_ other Dead Men. The one that was combined exasperation, guilt and don’t-dare-do-that-again-I-wouldn’t-know-what-I’d-do-if-I-lost-you. ‘I don’t consider it much fun to hear you cough, feel something burst in your chest and turn around to see you white as a sheet and unable to breathe with blood on your lips.’

“It was an accident,” Saracen muttered. He was still pale, but Erskine was relatively sure that was because of the whole ‘lungs re-rupturing’ thing. “If you object so much you should send Vengeous a memo to say who really insulted his dress-sense.”

‘Tempting, very tempting.’

By the time Ghastly and the others arrived, Kenspeckle had Saracen looking extremely miserable while taking a bath in something that smelled remarkably like over-ripe potatoes. Rover put his hands on his hips. “If this is some kind of new cologne, Saracen, I gotta tell you, it’s not working.”

“Shut up,” Saracen grumbled, sinking lower into his bath to hide his red face. Then he grimaced and lifted out of it again, trying to tilt his nose away from the fumes.

“I thought his lungs had ruptured,” Tanith said, staring in a clear mix of bemusement and humour. “Why does he need a bath?”

“The Baron’s magic is persistent,” said Kenspeckle as he handed some used flasks off to Civet and in the same breath admonished him, “ _Gently_!” Civet shrugged and carried them out very, very carefully to be washed. Kenspeckle waved at Saracen. “This brew draws the magic out of objects—or people, as the case may be—in much the same way venom might be drawn from a snakebite. Frankly it’s a last resort, since that means the magic will have to travel along his flesh and epidermis and out through his pores, so it may get a bit bloody in there when his skin ruptures, but it’s the most direct method at this point.”

Saracen let out a squeak and his eyes went wide, and the Edgleys looked at Kenspeckle with alarm. As one the Dead Men looked at Hopeless, who was leaning against the bed. (Valkyrie followed their gaze, jumped a little at the reminder he was there, and then looked away, shuffling uncomfortably.)

Hopeless was laughing.

Kenspeckle rolled his eyes. “I’m joking. Though you deserve the extra pain if it will remind you not to be a idiot. This bath soaks in through the pores and neutralises magic.” He picked up a glass which had been cooling on the counter and moved over to the tub. “Which is why you need to drink up and stop avoiding inhaling. Take deep breaths, in fact. The fumes need to saturate your tissue as much as possible.”

“Help me,” Saracen begged Rover, but the Elemental was too busy laughing, and shook his head.

“That’s what you get for taunting the bad guys.” Rover shook his finger at Saracen. “You bad boy, you.”

“But it wasn’t even me! It was Dexter! Dexter insulted his dress-sense! I mean, uh …” Saracen threw a guilty look at Tanith. She blinked.

“It was Dexter?” she asked. “But all the stories I ever heard said it was you.”

Saracen sank deeper into his bath, mumbling something about stories getting exaggerated, and lifted his dripping hands out of the tub for the glass Kenspeckle was still waiting for him to take.

“An hour,” the professor ordered. “Then you can get out and get dressed.” He pointed to the smock hanging in the corner just behind the tub. It was pink, and had little elephants and bunnies all over it. Saracen slumped, looking even more woebegone than before, and miserably sipped at his medicine. His vengeance achieved, Kenspeckle bustled out of the room.

“Will Fergus have to take something like that?” Desmond asked Ghastly with a combination of worry and anticipation. Ghastly shrugged.

“Honestly, I have no idea. I think half the time the professor makes his cures worse than necessary, just to put people off from getting hurt.”

“As if getting hurt isn’t enough?” asked Melissa, looking as if she wasn’t sure whether to approve or object.

“That part doesn’t seem to work very well a lot of the time. I think he felt he needed to take things up a notch. What _is_ this mysterious news you were being all mysterious about, anyway?”

This last, Ghastly directed at Erskine, who was busy smirking and ladling some of Saracen’s special bath over Saracen’s head. “Oh, nothing too special,” Erskine said without looking up, lifting the ladle up so Saracen, scowling, couldn’t snatch it. “We just figured out who the traitor in the Sanctuary is, that’s all.”

“Traitor?” Valkyrie echoed.

“In the Sanctuary?” Tanith demanded.

“Is _that_ what that secret mission was about?” Valkyrie wanted to know.

“Who is it?” Ghastly asked. Erskine pointed at each of them with the ladle as he answered.

“Yes, yes, yes, and wait ’til the others get here. You’re so impatient, Bespoke.”

“But you know who it is! Why aren’t you doing anything about it?” Valkyrie demanded.

“A little thing called burden of proof,” Saracen muttered. “All we have right now is my word and a stunning set of coincidences.”

“Is this person responsible for Fergus being kidnapped?” Desmond asked quietly.

Hopeless shook his head, and it was Ghastly who translated for him as he answered. “Probably only indirectly. The traitor made it possible for Vengeous to escape from the prison where he was being held, but we can’t tell yet whether they’ve had a hand in the Baron’s movements in Ireland.”

“Oh. Okay.” Desmond visibly relaxed, and then almost at once tensed up again. “Wait, should we be hearing this? Are we in danger for having this information?”

“Not if you don’t tell anyone you have it,” Rover pointed out. He was doing something over by the corner where the hospital gown was, but his body blocked anyone from seeing what it was.

“What if the Baron has a mind-reader or something?” Desmond’s brow furrowed. “Is that a thing that people can do?”

“Not really,” said Tanith. “I mean, there are always rumours and stories. I’ve actually met a sorcerer who claimed to be a mind-reader before, but all he could do was read a few surface thoughts, and it took him ten minutes and physical contact just to do that.” She shrugged. “It’s possible, but mostly mind-reading is a Sensitive magic that’s really overrated. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh. That’s good.” Desmond looked relieved, and neither he nor Tanith seemed to notice the way Valkyrie threw a glance at Hopeless and then looked away again. Erskine was fairly sure Saracen was taking advantage of his bath and its colour to laugh without being noticed.

“There.” With a satisfied expression Rover turned around from his corner, capping the black marker he’d been using and with a flourish presenting the elephant-and-bunny gown. Every one of the elephants on it now had a monocle and cane, and every bunny had a moustache and pipe.

Erskine was glad that Valkyrie broke into laughter first. It would have been undignified if he hadn’t been able to hold out longer than the teenager.

 

“The _Administrator_?” Dexter demanded. He had been saying the same thing since after he arrived, Rover had told him off, and Erskine had filled everyone in on their news.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “One might think you’re having trouble believing this, Dexter.”

“Do you know how many times I tried to seduce that woman over the past year?” Dexter looked a little green. “And all this time she’s been with _Sanguine_? I think I’m going to be sick.”

“To be fair,” Anton murmured, “all we truly know is that Sanguine may have recruited her. If they had been dallying, would she even be alive?”

Dexter took a moment to think that over, and then shook his head. “Probably not. Unless she can prove to be as psychopathic as he is, and I’ll admit, that’s one hell of a qualifier.”

“How do you know Sanguine, anyway?” Erskine demanded. The Edgleys were on the far side of the room, hovering over and scolding Fergus. Valkyrie was trying to separate herself in two so she could be in conversations, but Melissa had decided it wasn’t worth the risk of mind-reading for her to know anything more than she did, and dragged her off. Out of respect for the Dead Men’s need to talk things over on their own, and the Edgleys’ right for a private reunion, Tanith had gone to help unload the Grotesquery.

Which was why Erskine felt okay asking. He’d heard of Sanguine before, heard of his magic, but not that Dexter knew him well enough to have a personal vendetta.

Dexter glanced at him and shrugged. “I’ll tell you if you tell me why China thinks you’d know where Vengeous might have been hiding.”

Erskine blinked. “What?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I was asking. When I rang China earlier to ask if she’d know where Vengeous might take Fergus and the Grotesquery, she asked me what you said about it.”

Quite abruptly Erskine realised the mistake he’d made, in not volunteering his help when he could have, in challenging China like he had. Whether she’d done it on purpose or not, she’d put him in a bad position. For a moment he stared at Dexter; then his mouth snapped shut and he looked away. “I wouldn’t have a clue.”

“Right,” Saracen said, peering up at him from the bath. “That’s why you went ashen. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Erskine said tersely. “She was wrong, Dex. I’d have had no idea where Vengeous would have taken the Grotesquery. You know how much China loves me and all.”

Dexter’s eyes flickered to Hopeless, who just shook his head, and Skulduggery, who shrugged. Then Dexter’s gaze returned to Erskine and he nodded once, slowly. “He murdered my twin brother.”

Erskine blinked. “Your brother?” Another blink, this time with dawning realisation that drowned out any kind of anxiety. “ _Twin_? Dex—”

“Shh,” Rover scolded, wrapping his arms around Dexter’s shoulders. “Can’t you see he doesn’t want hollow platitudes? Can’t you see he just wants some loving? Just say the word, big boy.”

Erskine crossed his arms. “Actually, I was going to offer we hunt Sanguine down and _personally_ do something highly humiliating.”

“Like what?” Anton asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. It’s a bit hard to top hanging Dusk on the castle clad only in garlic bunches. Maybe we can turn Sanguine into an arm for Big Ben. It’s humiliating _and_ culturally insulting.”

Dexter was grinning. “Why don’t you both surprise me? Or better yet, give me a present each and then I’ll decide whose is best.”

“Mine, obviously,” Rover protested. “Mine includes massages! How is that not _automatically_ the best?”

“I can get massages from you anytime, Rover.”

“Not any more, you can’t.”

“If we can return to the topic at hand, please,” said Skulduggery.

“I’ve often wondered that myself,” murmured Ghastly, and Skulduggery looked at him. The tailor lifted his hands in a way that would have been apologetic, except that he was hiding a smirk.

“If the Administrator is the traitor, we can’t afford to go through official channels with this investigation,” Skulduggery continued as if Ghastly hadn’t interrupted. “Fortunately, Descry now has the power to make this official without us needing to go through either Guild or Morwenna.” Hopeless smiled and bowed.

“Can we get Bliss on board?” Saracen asked. His hour was nearly up and he had his arms on the tub’s edge.

“Tanith knows him,” Ghastly offered. “It won’t look odd for her to go to him for assignment.”

“Perhaps,” Skulduggery allowed. “He’s got no love for Vengeous either, and we’re going to need backup.”

“Are we?” Rover demanded, plucking a towel off the hook and shaking it out to present to Saracen with a flourish. “We’re Dead Men. We don’t need backup.”

“We do if we want to cover the Grotesquery and Fergus’s family at once and be of any use.”

Rover blanched. “Oh. Yeah.”

Saracen took the towel and wrapped it around himself, and then took another one to towel himself off properly while using the others’ bodies to block him from the Edgleys’ sight. “They have a family reunion on tomorrow night,” he pointed out. “Or tonight, by now. Beryl and the twins are going. There’s going to be upwards of fifty people there, and all mortals, descended from the Ancients or not. Is Vengeous really going to risk blowing that much cover?”

Dexter and Skulduggery exchanged looks. “They _are_ descended from the Ancients,” Dexter said quietly, “and Vengeous was willing to risk using Desmond and Melissa when Valkyrie was out of reach. And he threatened Fergus’s family.”

“But _fifty people_ ,” Saracen protested.

“He’s ruthless enough,” said Skulduggery, “though his being _desperate_ enough is another issue. I doubt he will go so far as to actively attack the reunion, although it _is_ an opportunity to get at our Edgleys without our interference. The question is what is more important to him: the Grotesquery or the bloodline? He doesn’t have the numbers to target both places at once, if he even knows about either.”

“It won’t be hard to find out,” Ghastly pointed out. “Everyone knows where the professor’s lab is, and Haggard is too small a town for a big party like this reunion not to be all over it.”

“Which means he will likely choose one to target first,” Skulduggery countered. “The question is, which?”

Everyone looked at Hopeless. They all of them knew, by now, that Hopeless was having problems with his magic, that they were the only ones he could read to any useful degree. That didn’t change the fact that he’d been close enough to read the Baron many times during the war. Even without the benefit of mind-reading now, he was still arguably the person who knew the Baron best.

Hopeless was leaning back against one of the raised cots, his head lowered and eyes closed in thought. He didn’t move to answer at first, but eventually he glanced up and unfolded his arms to sign. ‘The Grotesquery is the nearest thing he has to one of his gods. He won’t suffer it being sullied by being autopsied. Chances are, he’ll come here first.’

 _Chances are._ That phrase alone made a shiver run down Erskine’s spine. In the whole of the time they’d been together as a unit, Erskine had never known Hopeless to need to disclaim his assertions. Until now. Until Serpine.

“Then we have the bulk of us on guard here,” said Anton, moving on as if nothing was wrong at all, “and one or two keeping an eye on the Edgleys.”

“Can we get Gordon to help keep watch?” Saracen asked, his voice muffled for a moment before he pulled the towel off his head. Rover snickered at the state of his hair. Saracen scowled at him, but declined to comment. “I mean, he’s only an Echo now, but he can walk through walls. If we station him somewhere at the reunion he can at least keep an eye on anyone who’s not supposed to be there.”

“It can’t do any harm,” Skulduggery agreed, “provided, of course, no one who thinks he’s dead sees him.”

“So we have Bliss with Gordon at Haggard, and—what?” Saracen scowled at Erskine as he shook his head. “Bliss has to go to Haggard while we cover the Hibernian. Otherwise we’ll have to split up. The Dead Men never split up.”

“The Edgleys don’t know Bliss,” Erskine said. “He won’t be able to fit in without drawing attention.”

“Desmond knows Bliss,” Saracen pointed out. “And they can introduce Tanith as Val’s martial-arts trainer.”

“It has its merits,” Anton allowed. “We work best as a team. Bliss was born a nobleman. He will fit in. And Low has worked with him before.”

“So we’re sending the Edgleys to the reunion then?” Rover wondered.

“It’d save us from splitting our forces further,” Skulduggery said. “With Bliss there they’ll be as safe as they can possibly be.”

“And meantime you lot conspire to keep me away from Tanith.” Dexter sighed. “At least she won’t be around for Ghastly to steal.”

“I don’t need to _steal_ anyone from you, Vex.”

“Hey, what about me?” Saracen complained. “I’m the one here who’s actually dated her. I’m the one here who should be jealous.”

“If you call post-battle adrenalised sex _dating_ ,” Rover pointed out innocently, and held up the elephants-and-bunnies smock. “Just your size, my dear.”

Saracen scowled and snatched it out of his hands. “I hate you.”

“Now, children,” Erskine said. “Fine. Bliss and Tanith keep eyes on the Edgleys while we dance with Deuce.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Except for you, Descry. You get to go back to the Sanctuary and play politics.”

“Er.” Saracen raised a hand. “Is there a part of ‘not splitting up’ that you’ve forgotten?”

“Descry’s an Elder now, and we need someone to keep working on revealing Harken as the traitor.”

Hopeless shook his head and, smiling wryly, signed, ‘Don’t try to be tactful now, Skulduggery. What you mean to say is that I can’t anticipate the Baron’s people in real-time if I can’t read them. That, and you don’t want to risk losing another Elder so soon after last year.’

“Well, since you insist on bending my arm …”

‘I’m staying, Skulduggery. Every time we’ve been separated, bad things have happened.’ He didn’t need to say what. Every time Mevolent’s people had managed to come between one of them and the rest, that one had been captured. ‘I’ll stay by the Grotesquery, or in the control-room. Just because I can’t read anyone but you lot doesn’t mean I won’t feel them coming, and I can keep an eye on you.’

“You can’t _talk_ , Descry.”

‘So I’ll whistle. I’m staying.’

Skulduggery sighed. “Don’t get killed. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Of course not,” said Ghastly. “We haven’t let you live down your own death yet.”

“With any luck, maybe we’ll get this mess tied up in a bow before tomorrow night,” Erskine grumbled.

“Of course we will,” said Rover. “We’re Dead Men. Suicide missions are our speciality.”


	14. Prior preparation prevents ...

There was something up with Erskine. It was subtle; some of his smiles were forced and faded quickly, if they even reached his eyes at all. It was the part where Dexter had, on several occasions, glanced over to find Erskine staring blankly into space that worried him. Dexter had seen that look before—a thousand-yard look. Erskine had done that a lot for the last couple of decades of the war. They even had a name for it these days—‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’.

It was one of the reasons Dexter had been utterly unsurprised when Hopeless announced he was going to study psychology. World’s first psychologist, Hopeless. He’d been one before they knew what to call it.

Erskine hadn’t done the stare for years. Dexter would have expected something like that right after the last year, after they’d rescued Hopeless, but it hadn’t happened. So why was it happening now? Right after the Baron had reappeared? The Baron hadn’t had much to do with what happened to Erskine during the war, at least not enough to make Erskine react badly in China’s library.

But there was _something_ there. Enough that as they worked to set up barriers in the Hibernian’s corridors, Dexter watched Erskine sidelong, talking about nothing and unsurprised when Erskine stopped answering. In fact, he only seemed to get tenser. Finally Dexter straightened up and crossed his arms.

“Alright, out with it.”

Erskine blinked at him. “What?”

“You’re wound up tighter than a bungee-jumping elephant. Maybe we should’ve brought Rover to make it a threesome in the hallway.” At least Erskine smiled. “Don’t try to pretend there isn’t something, either.”

“Didn’t Descry tell you not to ask?”

“No, he just shook his head. And then he pulled me aside and told me to keep an eye on you. Come on, Erskine. You’ll be watching my back tonight, and you know the rules. ‘Anything that might hurt you or others if they don’t know it.’ Well?”

For a long time Erskine didn’t answer. That alone told Dexter that he _wasn’t_ okay, that this _could_ affect his performance in battle, but he was so used to not talking about it that talking took some self-convincing. Dexter waited patiently. He’d learned a thing or two from Hopeless over the years.

“It’s just—it’s nothing to do with the Baron himself. I’m not afraid of him.”

“Okay.”

“It’s something else. One of those things you should have done and didn’t, and now you don’t know how badly it changed things.”

Something unpleasant turned over in Dexter’s gut, but all he said was, “You’ve never been the type to let guilt stop you from what needs to be done.”

Erskine laughed shortly. “That’s sort-of part of the problem. Hopeless says I should air my guilt more often. It’s one of those things we’ve been working on. I just don’t tend to get confronted by things I feel guilty about unless I’m in therapy with him.”

“Okay,” Dexter said slowly, and then shook his head. “I’m lost.”

Erskine pointed. “Main hall’s just up there.”

“And here I thought your lack of driving skills meant you never learned to navigate either.”

“Just making up for lost talent.”

Dexter laughed, lifted a gurney and turned it on its side. “Alright. What should you have done and didn’t?”

There was a pause. “I know the Torment. If I’d asked him about the Grotesquery, he might have told me.”

It was a good thing Dexter had steady nerves and had already lowered the gurney to the floor. As it was, there was no real outward reaction. After a moment of thought, he realised there was no reason for there to be. He risked a glance to the side. “How do you know him?”

Erskine was looking straight ahead, his face set. “He’s the one who rescued me from Mevolent’s dungeon. I spent my year recovering with the Children of the Spider.”

Dexter had never known that. He suspected the only one who did was Hopeless. Why would Erskine hide that? The Children of the Spider weren’t well accepted in magical society, but they’d been Meritorious’s allies and the Torment had returned Erskine to them. In Dexter’s book that was worth a lot of thanks.

But Erskine had never mentioned that part. Like he was ashamed. Why?

He was not, Dexter decided, nearly as good a psychologist as Hopeless, even though Hopeless cheated. What he did do was shrug. “Okay. Also, you’re an idiot.”

“Thanks, Dex.”

“No, really. So you didn’t want to talk to a man who reminds you of when you were horribly tortured and your best friends didn’t come after you because they thought you were dead. So what?” He straightened up and looked at his friend. “Erskine, he said he’d tell us where the Grotesquery was. But he wanted something in exchange. He asked us to kill _you_.”

The blood drained out of Erskine’s face, but his quiet voice was steady as he said, “He said that?”

Dexter nodded. “I’m not going to ask why, if you knew him so well, he’d ask for that. But even if the Torment had told you anything, chances are we would have had to fight to get the Grotesquery away from Vengeous, and then we still would have had to fight him to rescue Fergus. As it is, we’ve got both the Grotesquery _and_ Fergus, and we have enough time to make preparations before the Baron retaliates. So you’re an idiot if you’re going to let some guilt over things that don’t matter anymore trip you up.”

For a moment Erskine didn’t answer; he just stared down the corridor. Then he looked back at Dex and managed a smile. “Thanks, Dex.”

Dexter grinned back. “Don’t mention it. Actually, do, just to answer one thing. China knows, doesn’t she?”

Erskine hesitated, but then nodded. “And something else that’s related but not really relevant right now. She tried to blackmail me with it.”

Which explained not only why China thought Erskine might know something about the Grotesquery, but why Erskine hated using her as a resource. Of course he wouldn’t want to put even tentative trust in someone who had once tried to use information against him. Whatever that information was. Erskine was still holding something back, but if he said it wasn’t relevant to the current situation, Dexter believed him.

He still resolved to never go to China Sorrows when he got bored again, though in his defence he had been a bit drunk at the time. Okay, a lot drunk, and Saracen and Gracious had dared him, but that didn’t matter.

“China’s secretly a vampire,” Dex grumbled as he straightened again and brushed off his hands unnecessarily. “Well, that’s this area done. Let’s go on to the next and while we’re at it figure out some way to get revenge on China too.”

“Now _there’s_ a gift I’ll gladly accept.”

 

Kenspeckle Grouse had not been pleased to hear that the Dead Men planned to turn his laboratory into a war-zone, but Hopeless managed to talk him into shuffling some things around in the name of ensuring as little damage as possible both to the facility and to the people. The Grotesquery was put in the most secure laboratory, around which they could base their defences. They would have to keep someone in there at all times to avoid Sanguine bursting in and stealing it, so while Dexter and Erskine layered the halls with deterrents Anton was rearranging the room to his benefit.

Tanith called Bliss on Hopeless’s behalf and left the laboratory to meet him in Haggard not long ago. She gave them a new report from the Sanctuary first: a series of international assassinations had ruined any chance of help from other Sanctuaries. They were on their own. The Cleavers Bliss sent were just now arriving, and Ghastly watched them file into the Hibernian, their armour and scythes gleaming. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to read one of them,” he murmured to Hopeless. “Are they like a hive mind?”

‘Orderly,’ Hopeless signed. ‘Their minds are so orderly they cut. It’s like watching a knife-thrower and knowing that at some point he’s going to miss and something disastrous will happen. Which is how Rippers are born. Most Cleavers have been Cleavers for too long to accept having their conditioning removed. By that point, their minds have cut themselves to shreds.’

“And once again you remind me why I’m happy not being you.”

Hopeless smiled faintly and didn’t answer. The Cleavers assembled before him and Hopeless surveyed them for a moment before nodding to himself. He signalled them their orders using basic military signs, and a moment later the group split, moving off in different directions. Hopeless turned to Ghastly. ‘I’ve told this group to follow you and go where you tell them.’

Ghastly surveyed the handful of Cleavers left, considering. _The laboratory, I think. Shudder can probably hold it on his own, but he shouldn’t have to, and the Baron will be expecting us to put our strongest fighter in with the Grotesquery._

The movement of Hopeless’s hands made him glance over. ‘Don’t let Skulduggery hear you think that.’

Ghastly laughed. “He won’t know if you don’t tell him. Cleavers, follow.”

Ghastly led his squad downstairs and into the laboratory, where Anton was prowling the wall, his keen gaze checking the location of each piece of furniture. They were all either timber or metal—things Sanguine couldn’t burrow through. Cabinets, desks, low solid things suitable for cover but which wouldn’t get in the way of Anton’s gist if he had to use it. The Grotesquery was on an upraised gurney, high enough to make it difficult to pull to the floor but too low to reach from the ceiling.

Anton looked up as Ghastly entered, bowed, and motioned behind him. “I have underlings for you.”

“I have no need of underlings.”

“Then just keep them to make Erskine jealous.” He stepped aside to let the Cleavers enter, and with only a silent scan they positioned themselves on their own. “How are we doing?”

Anton took another look around. “Prepared,” he said at last, “as best as possible. Sanguine will be difficult.”

“The Baron won’t be a piece of cake either.”

“That too.” Anton rubbed his shoulder. Ghastly knew he was remembering. Anton Shudder had been one of the most feared figures on the battlefield during the war. There had been a mission once, just after Skulduggery came back, where they had needed to move the bulk of their army through the Carpathians. At that point no one had seen Vile in weeks, but everyone assumed he would be there.

He hadn’t been—but the Baron had. Anton had gone toe-to-toe with him, right at a point where he couldn’t use his gist without the risk of bringing half the mountain down on top of their own forces. He’d held the Baron off long enough to move their people through and take up positions. That shoulder had been shattered in the fight; if it weren’t for magic, he’d have lost his whole arm.

If it weren’t for Skulduggery’s timely intervention, he’d have lost his life.

There just weren’t many men who could claim to match the Baron, let alone without benefit of magic. In this room, Anton would at least still be able to use his gist.

“Speak your mind, Ghastly.”

Ghastly startled and then smiled sheepishly at Anton’s patient face. A moment later that smile vanished too. “Ever get the feeling we’re on the edge of a war again? First Serpine. Now Vengeous. It’s like the universe is building up to something.”

“Maybe.” Anton looked around again and then shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter. Here, now, we protect the Grotesquery. Tomorrow we wonder about the future.”

“Tomorrow never comes, Anton.”

Anton glanced over and smiled. “Then it’s a good thing none of us would rather be anywhere but here.”

“I can think of a few places,” Ghastly grumbled, but he was smiling and it showed the lie. He didn’t care.

 

Rover wandered into Kenspeckle’s control-room already whining. Whining was good for the soul—or at least good for the morale of the unit. He aired concerns, let people get annoyed at him, relieved the tension. Everybody won!

Right now, he was whining about his fingers. And blisters.

“I’m a masseur,” he complained. “How can a man be expected to maintain the health and amazing value of his hands when he’s being forced to pick up heavy and blistering objects?”

The control-room wasn’t really a control-room. It was just the place where the most computers were, and where the intercom was, and had therefore probably been some kind of staff room. Back when it had been … whatever it was. It couldn’t always have been Kenspeckle’s lab, right? Rover didn’t actually know. He also didn’t actually care.

He surveyed the room with his hands on his hips. One of the security monitors, the very few Kenspeckle had still working, showed his assistants moving things into a storeroom where they might be less likely to get broken. Skulduggery and Saracen were leaning over the computers. They hadn’t even looked up.

“That’s nice, Rover,” Saracen said.

“You still smell like overcooked potato.”

Saracen’s head snapped up. “I do not! Do I?”

Rover grinned. “Knew you were secretly listening. And yeah, maybe a little.”

“Do not,” Saracen muttered, but Rover saw him try to surreptitiously sniff himself and laughed.

“Some of us like the smell of potato, Saracen,” Skulduggey said. “Now can you focus?”

“You like the smell of potato?” Rover asked, throwing himself in the chair nearest to them and pretending to check something down on a list. “I’ll keep _that_ in mind for my inevitable seduction.”

“He’s not enough man for you, Rover.”

“He’s not enough man for anybody, let alone a woman, but I like having the challenge.”

Skulduggery tilted his skull at Rover. “Should I leave the room while you discuss your intent to ravish me?”

“No, this way you’re prepared. What _are_ you doing, anyway?”

“Descry’s seeing to the Cleavers,” said Saracen. “I’m setting up the computer so he can access the intercom and the security cameras, and use a mechanised voice. We figured it would be easier than whistling.”

“I’m not entirely certain he knows what he’s doing,” said Skulduggery, “but nothing’s blown up yet, so I assume it’s working.”

“I hate you both,” Saracen grumbled, and then tapped some final keys and sat back in his chair. “There. Done. Want to test it for me, Rover?”

“Oh, goody!” Rover wheeled himself over and took control of the keyboard, typing directly into the program Saracen indicated. _‘Testing, testing, one two three, one two three. A B C D E F G H I got a gaaaaaaaal in Kalamazoo, zoo, zoo, zoo zoo.’_

Saracen snatched back the keyboard, laughing, as the digitised voice spoke Rover’s text verbatim, ponderously and without emotion. Skulduggery looked down at the computer. “It doesn’t seem terribly subtle, does it?”

“There’s always radios.”

“We don’t have radios.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Can you put it through our phones?”

“Only if you all have text-to-voice functions and earphones.”

“I don’t know if I have a text-to-voice function on my phone.”

“But you do have ears?”

Skulduggery looked down at Saracen’s grin, and shook his head. “Youngsters and their gadgets these days.”

“I’ll have you know my old man is the one who taught me everything I know.”

“ _Everything_?” Rover demanded with a wicked grin.

“Most things,” Saracen amended hastily before he could go on. “Everything computer-related, anyway. I’m perfectly capable of figuring out _some_ things on my own.”

“And here I was starting to think being an instant sex god ran in the family … Ow!” Rover rubbed the back of his head and glared up at Hopeless. “No one’s allowed to be that quiet when they enter a room,” he grumbled. “It’s cheating.”

 Hopeless lifted his eyebrows and signed, ‘I knew you had a type, Rover, but this is taking the phrase “keeping things in the family” a little too far, don’t you think?’

“It’s your own fault for leaving a son lying around. Especially one whose mother was in the business. We pleasure agents are very interested in the naturally talented types, you know.”

‘So this is a recruitment? You’re hoping to get at my son through me?’

“Of course not. I’m hoping to get at you through your son.”

“Once you’ve all finished dallying with each other,” Skulduggery said, “I don’t suppose you know how the others are doing, Descry?”

Hopeless nodded as he took the seat Saracen vacated. ‘Dex and Erskine are on their last corridor and Ghastly’s taken the Cleavers down to Anton. Do you know where you’re all going to be?’

“Near enough,” Skulduggery said, and checked his pocketwatch. “It’s nearly nightfall. We’re as prepared as we’re going to be. Stations, everyone.”

“You’ve wanted to say that since we made you watch Star Trek,” Rover accused, getting to his feet.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Skulduggery said, resettling his hat on his head the way he only did when he wasn’t feeling nearly as confident as he was pretending, and moving for the door.


	15. The Edgley family reunion thing

There were more people at the reunion than Valkyrie had been expecting. They filled the function room almost to capacity—people talking and laughing and shaking hands and hugging. Aunts and uncles and cousins of every degree, adding to the cacophony that surrounded Valkyrie like a bubble of sound.

Most of these people she didn’t know—she’d never seen them before, and would never see them again. It didn’t exactly fill her with regret, but she was surprised by the curiosity as she looked around the room again. It was hard to believe that most of these people were directly descended from a race of super-magical Ancients, and yet most of them looked like they would have trouble crossing a street without assistance. For some reason she couldn’t help but think of what Fergus had told her about her grandfather and great-grandfather. They were both dead now, but Valkyrie wondered just how many of these people had heard the family legend and believed it was true when they were children.

Valkyrie had already been accosted once when she stood still for too long, so she moved around the outskirts of the room, avoiding anyone’s eyes and wishing she was with the Dead Men or back home.

Of course, she couldn’t go back home. The door needed fixing and the Baron knew where she lived. The Dead Men hadn’t wanted to split up, but they couldn’t leave Beryl and the twins unguarded either. In the end Fergus, once Kenspeckle grudgingly pronounced him fit enough to return home as long as he took things easy, had done just that. For a while, anyway. From what Valkyrie had heard there had been a lot of shouting, some shrill accusations about Larrikin, and then Fergus had managed to convince Beryl to let him make up for vanishing overnight by taking her and the twins to a special and very nice hotel for the day.

Valkyrie was pretty sure her mum had made a note that the Midnight Hotel could relocate right next to a semi-local spa. She was also pretty sure Beryl had no idea that it was the ‘best hotel Gordon had ever been to’ mentioned in his will. And Valkyrie now knew for a fact that Tanith made a good perky receptionist.

Tanith had drawn the line at actually interacting with anyone during the reunion, so she was stationed outside. Mr Bliss was impossible to miss no matter where he was, so he had come inside with them and attracted a lot of awed attention. Valkyrie glanced over to where the drinks were, right near the main door, and where he was currently being talked at by a matron who didn’t seem to be intimidated by his impassive stare. In a million years, she would not have imagined seeing Mr Bliss at an Edgley family reunion. The really weird part was that he wasn’t just standing around being stoic. He was actually _talking back_. And _holding conversations_.

It weirded Valkyrie out. She wasn’t used to seeing Bliss as a person. She especially wasn’t used to seeing Bliss arrive at the golf club in her hometown to find out the staff already knew him because her father had taken him golfing at least twice in the last year.

Which was why she was avoiding him, really, because he almost seemed to enjoy being there.

She knew that Gordon’s Echo was loitering somewhere in the unused offices, probably spending more time watching the Edgleys than for the Baron. Dad and Fergus were having a conversation with another man that involved a lot of gestures. Beryl had just made a bee-line for someone she recognised. Mum was being talked at while glancing around for a rescue.

Valkyrie avoided the window and went the other side of the room, heading for Mum. Then the twins were blocking her way. At least, Crystal was. Carol hovered in the background. Crystal’s bottle-blonde hair was so straight it looked like it’d been ironed, but Carol’s hair was in loose ringlets which framed her face and made her look rather attractive.

“Surprised you’re even here,” Crystal said with much disgust.

“The ‘family’ part of ‘family reunion’ didn’t give it away, huh?”

“Glad to see you didn’t spend too long getting dressed up,” said Crystal, and sniggered. Valkyrie looked down. Her dress actually looked nice, she thought. It was black and pretty, but she couldn’t get comfortable. All she could think about was the fact that the Baron had come after her parents. Crystal’s own father could have been killed last night, and she was harassing Valkyrie.

To be fair, she thought grudgingly, Crystal didn’t know that part. But Valkyrie still didn’t have time for this kind of stupidity. So she sighed just as Crystal had opened her mouth, and looked at her cousin’s sister. “What do you want, Carol?”

Thankfully, Carol leapt in before Crystal could say anything. “Do you know where Dad was last night?”

“What makes you think I know?”

“Oh please.” Crystal rolled her eyes. “You got attacked yesterday morning and you’re always hanging around those weirdos. You think we haven’t noticed Dad going around your house more often lately? It’s not enough that you got Gordon’s house, now you’re sucking up to _our_ father too.”

The anger and vitriol, Valkyrie had been expecting. But she was surprised by the bitterness.  That was why she answered honestly. “I’m not sucking up. My dad and yours made up, that’s all. I’m barely even there when Fergus is.”

“Then why weren’t any of you there last night?” Carol asked. “None of you answered your phones, and all Rover said was that something had happened that they had to handle, but everything would be okay.”

“And he was right, wasn’t he?” Valkyrie started, and then stopped. “Wait. You have Rover’s number?”

To her surprise, Carol reddened. “Um. Yes. He’s been teaching me makeup artistry.”

Valkyrie looked at her, and then at Crystal, and then back again. There was a difference, now she bothered to pay attention. Carol’s makeup was so subtle Valkyrie hadn’t even noticed it, while Crystal’s was so heavy that looking at her was like being slammed in the face. Valkyrie blinked. “Rover’s a makeup artist?"

Carol nodded. “He used to be in theatre, didn’t you know? He said it was boring just knowing how to lay on powder for the stage, so he learned how to do it for every-day, too.” She eyed Valkyrie. “You don’t really need it. Your skin’s too tanned. Maybe some mascara to bring out your eyes, but that’s it. You’re lucky.”

“I didn’t know that. About Rover, I mean.”

“Oh, he’s done practically everything,” Carol gushed. “The Army and Broadway, and did you know he hand-makes puppets? And—”

“For God’s sake, Carol,” Crystal snarled. Carol cut off and blushed deeply, and Valkyrie stared at her.

“Oh my God, you’ve got a crush on Rover.”

Carol’s blush turned blotchy. “He’s nice to me,” she mumbled.

“He is,” Valkyrie said quickly. “He’s really nice. And he’s really funny. But he’s kind of embarrassing too. I didn’t think you’d like guys like that.”

“He just likes making people laugh,” Carol said defensively. Crystal snorted. Carol tossed her hair back and lifted her chin. “ _I_ think it’s wonderful that he doesn’t care what people think.”

“You _would_ crush on a gay man,” Crystal said. “This is boring. See you, losers.”

Silently Valkyrie and Carol watched her flounce off. Carol did, at least. Valkyrie was busy watching Carol. This was a side of her cousin that Valkyrie had only seen occasionally. Someone shy and clumsy, but earnest. It had never occurred to Valkyrie that Rover might be responsible, but now she knew, she didn’t know why she was so surprised. She cast about for a change in topic.

“Look,” she said, diplomatically, “if you want to know what happened, you should probably ask your dad.”

“I did,” Carol said. “He just gave me this really tired and sad look and told me it didn’t matter, it had happened and he couldn’t change it. But he’s been acting really strangely. I mean, if we so much as left that hotel we went to, he’d come out to keep us company. He’s never done that before. And he was really angry at Rover during Gordon’s funeral last year, but I think they’re spending even more time together than they used to. And him and your dad actually made up. How weird is that?”

She wasn’t, Valkyrie admitted, wrong. Valkyrie had never had a problem with lying to the twins before, but she didn’t want to do that now. She hesitated. “I can’t tell you much. It’s not—well, okay, it _is_ kind of big, and I found out by accident. That’s the only reason I know. But I shouldn’t tell you. That’s up to Fergus.”

Carol opened her mouth. Valkyrie never got a chance to hear what she had to say, because the window shattered and Tanith came flying through and hit the floor. People screamed. Valkyrie was moving before she remembered telling herself to, dragging Carol down with her and trying to take cover behind one of the tables. Quick as a flash Tanith rolled to her feet, cut up and breathing hard but mobile. She adjusted her grip on her sword and her gaze didn’t move from the shattered window.

“Excuse me, miss,” someone started to say.

“Stephanie?” Carol whispered, but Valkyrie’s eyes were on the darkness beyond the window. There was movement out there, and it was coming closer, and then there were Infected climbing through the window without regard for how it cut them. Someone hurried forward to try and help them, exclaiming anxiously as he reach for the nearest Infected’s arm. With dull eyes the Infected reached out and tore his throat open.

The screaming started again, and people surged toward the other exit. Just before they got there the shadows moved around the edges of the jamb, and the doors were thrust open in a rush of darkness that sent the closest people flying back. Then _he_ stepped in: a man in black armour, armour that seemed to shift and move as if it was alive. Valkyrie saw Bliss pushing through the people toward him, but there were so many that it made his going difficult. She saw Dad shouting, looking around wildly, and Fergus standing white-faced and staring at the man in the black armour. Tanith was fighting the Infected, leaping and whirling and her blade a flash of motion. Valkyrie couldn’t see her mother, and her stomach lurched.

Carol was gripping Valkyrie’s arm so tightly that Valkyrie was losing sensation in her fingers. “Carol,” she said, and heard her voice come as if from a distance, but very calm. “Let go of my arm. I need it. And call Rover. Tell him the Baron is at the reunion.”

All of them had assumed that if the Baron tried to go after the Edgleys he would do it while avoiding as much attention as possible. Not … this.

She had to do something. She was in a dress, not even a Ghastly-made dress, and she had to do something. “Stay down,” she told Carol, prying her cousin’s fingers from her arm. “ _Ring Rover._ ”

“What’s happening?” Carol demanded in a high-pitched voice just short of a scream.

“That man over there wants to kill us all,” Valkyrie said bluntly, finding Carol’s phone in her evening bag and shoving it at her. “Rover, Carol! We need the others here!”

“But—”

But Valkyrie had already risen. One of the Infected grabbed an old woman with saggy cheeks who looked like a bulldog. Valkyrie picked up a chair and brought it down across his back, and then stepped in to punch him. He stumbled and she punched him again, and he fell over. The last she saw of him he was being trampled by terrified Edgleys.

“Valkyrie!” Tanith shouted, and Valkyrie felt someone grab her from behind. She jabbed her elbow back, stamped in the inside of their foot and whirled to punch them in the nose and then knee them in the groin. Even Infected, she reckoned, would go down if they were hit in the groin. This Infected was a woman, but she collapsed anyway.

Once Valkyrie started moving, she found she couldn’t seem to stop. There were at least two dozen Infected, and both she and Tanith were reluctant to hurt them too much—according to Erskine, they were still _people_ under there. At the same time, Valkyrie tried to keep an eye out for her mother.

It felt like minutes at least, but it could only have been half of one, before a raspy voice came sounding eerily from over the din. “Run, run, run, as fast as you can.”

It was a children’s rhyme, a nursery rhyme which should have sounded ridiculous in that voice, but the Baron’s tone was low and amused—not mocking so much as _threatening_. Valkyrie felt a prickle down her back and whirled, certain she was about to see the shadows lunging for her. Instead she saw the Baron lift his arms, and the shadows swelling up, and then they shot out and impaled the front row of Edgleys through the torso as they tried to back away.

Valkyrie stared, her ears ringing. It took her a numb moment to realise that was because the screaming had reached a fevered pitch. The Baron didn’t let the bodies fall; he drew them closer to him, not spilling a drop of blood, and with a blinding start Valkyrie realised that the Baron wasn’t there for _her_ , or for Fergus—he was there for the blood of the Ancients, and had decided continuing to pursue them while they were protected by Dead Men was no longer worth the trouble.

“ _Valkyrie_!” Valkyrie heard Tanith shout, right before something collided with her. She made herself relax and didn’t land as hard as she could have, the heel of her palm jabbing up at her assailant’s face. She took advantage as the Infected rocked back to punch his throat, and he gagged and his grip loosened. The next minute someone had run over him and slammed him back into her, and she felt his breath on her shoulder. Fighting down the panic, Valkyrie gripped his shoulders and tried to slide out from under him. His grip tightened again but she slammed his face against the floor and kicked out, and managed to scramble to her feet before she got trampled like he was. She found herself near the wall and away from the crush, and took a moment to catch her breath and look around.

Shadows seethed along the walls and ceiling. Bliss was fighting Vengeous, but he wasn’t getting very far. He had to fight off the shadows just to get close enough to use his legendary strength, and when he did Vengeous threw the Edgleys in his way. There were too many people to protect them all.

“Stephanie!”

Carol’s scream made Valkyrie whirl again, and she spotted one of the Infected trying to drag her cousin out from under her chair. Carol was gripping her phone and kicking at the Infected’s legs. Valkyrie snapped her fingers and threw the fireball at the Infected’s back, and then picked up a chair and brought it down on him. He collapsed and Valkyrie reached down to drag Carol up, pulling her around an overturned table.

“Did you ring Rover?” she demanded.

Ashen, Carol nodded, her mouth opening and moving like she meant to talk but the words simply weren’t coming out. Then she blurted, “Have you seen Crystal?”

“No. I haven’t seen our mums yet, either.” Fergus and Dad had managed to take cover behind the stage and were using microphone stands and Fergus’s limited magic to keep the Infected at bay. Tanith was still in the centre of the room, trying grimly to keep the Infected from the Edgleys. It was impossible; if they ran from the Infected, they ran right into the Baron, and if they ran from the Baron they collided with the Infected. Maybe some had managed to hide inside the parlour where Valkyrie had left Gordon. She wondered vaguely how he was doing.

It was probably the safest place to be. Maybe that’s where their mums were.

“Come on.” Valkyrie pulled on Carol’s arm and they hugged the wall, avoiding panicking family members and rampaging Infected, until they reached the parlour. Valkyrie shoved the door open and dragged a stumbling Carol through, and almost didn’t duck in time as someone snarled and leapt at them. Valkryie slammed against the floor, scrambled to her feet, and just as the Infected was turning she shoved at the air and tossed her out of the room, and then slammed the door behind her.

For a moment things were quiet. They could still hear the sounds of fighting outside, but it was almost dim now. “I think we’re okay.”

Valkyrie turned and saw Carol standing rigid, staring at something further into the room. She saw Gordon standing halfway inside the desk and said quickly, “It’s okay, Carol, he’s not a ghost—at least, not exactly—”

Carol let out a sound crossed between a moan and a whimper. Valkyrie realised that she wasn’t even looking at Gordon, she was looking at the floor in front of him, where _he_ was looking. Gordon lifted his face and Valkyrie realised he was crying. He whispered, “I can’t touch anything. I couldn’t help her.”

Her heart hammering in her chest, Valkyrie walked around the chair and saw Crystal on the floor with her eyes staring lifelessly up at the ceiling, her throat torn open and a charred cigarette crumpled in her fingers.


	16. A smattering of slaughtering

There wasn’t enough room for all of them in the Bentley, so they took Ghastly’s van. Rover’s phone rang when they were under five minutes from Haggard, and without opening his eyes Saracen said, “It’s Carol.”

Rover tried to keep her on the line. The last thing any of them heard before her phone hung up was her screaming for her cousin. Skulduggery wordlessly put more pressure on the pedal, and no one argued. If any police tried to stop them, they’d just get run a merry chase into a new crime scene.

They’d split up. There hadn’t been any choice. Anton, Ghastly, Hopeless and Dex were back at the Hibernian, which every single one of the Dead Men knew would be hit just as soon as their numbers were halved, but there was nothing they could do about it. If they didn’t make it to the reunion in time, Saracen had said, the Edgleys would become an extinct animal. Hopeless had been wrong about the Baron.

Erskine was trying very, very hard not to give that thought more power than it already had just by existing. Hopeless being wrong went against everything Erskine, all of them, knew unequivocally about life. Surely the Baron hadn’t changed _that_ much since Hopeless had last read his mind?

Either way, it was something they would only get the chance to figure out later.

The golf club was a shining oasis of light in the darkness of its broad fields and the shift of the ocean. Even from this distance, it was obvious there was something wrong—or maybe that was just because Erskine had seen too many situations exactly like this. There was an almost physical silence around the building and the doors were hanging open; but beyond that, behind the club, shadows were moving.

 _All_ the shadows were moving, Erskine realised with a start and a deep, abiding chill. Under the eaves, under the cars, on the windowsills—the shadows slunk and rustled like living things.

“Get ready,” said Skulduggery. He pulled into the drive, up onto the parking-lot’s curb and in through the club’s lobby. In flashes Erskine saw that it was empty, that there were writhing shadows blocking the door to the functions room, and then Skulduggery slammed on the brakes and struck the doors with a shriek of metal and the groaning submission of wood.

Erskine held on for dear life, one hand extended to use the air to blunt their momentum. The shadows parted around them like angry spiders, and Lord Vile— _Baron Vengeous_ —whirled around. He raised his hands and the van collided with a solid wall of darkness, its front crumpling like paper.

“Ghastly won’t be happy about that,” said Saracen, but he was already throwing open the sliding door. Erskine kicked his door open and dropped out, using the van as cover. Saracen appeared by his side, waiting for an opportunity to slip by for the stairs leading to the next storey. Skulduggery’s door burst off its hinges and slammed up against the Baron’s shield, where it sat for a moment before clattering to the floor.

Skulduggery moved forward with fire in both hands. At the sight of him the few whimpers and cries took on a fresh terrified energy, but Skulduggery ignored them and hurled fire at the shadows. The van rocked as Rover leapt onto its roof and spread his hands, and moisture collected near the ceiling; Erskine rotated his hands and air caught the water and funnelled it over Vengeous’s barrier. Rover clenched his fists. The water became thick spears of ice, and with a sharp motion downward Erskine made them plummet on the Baron.

Saracen broke for the stairs. The shadows swept up and blocked the icicles, and Erskine caught sight of that black armour, and past it, Bliss striding forward. Skulduggery pushed and the Baron skidded back, one hand whisking up. A whip of shadows lashed out around him. Skulduggery ducked, Erskine vaulted onto the van’s bonnet before it could crush him against the wall as it shot back, and Rover somersaulted over the shadows toward the Baron. He landed and spun, kicking out; the Baron stepped back and gathered shadows around his fist, but Bliss seized his wrist and twisted and threw, and the Baron landed hard enough to crack the floor. Skulduggery moved forward with the other two, and Erskine took a moment to assess.

The terrified musicians were helping Fergus and Desmond ward off a handful of Infected using speakers and microphone stands, and had managed to gather a few wounded behind the stage. A few others were cowering behind overturned tables. Tanith Low was dangerously close to where Bliss and the Dead Men were engaging the Baron; she had given up trying to avoid killing the Infected. Bodies littered the floor—mostly Edgleys—but fewer than Erskine would have expected. Behind her, the broken window yawned into darkness. Erskine didn’t see Melissa or Valkyrie at all. All told, out of fifty people, there had to be a bare dozen left which Erskine could confidently say were still alive.

Erskine glanced around and spotted one of the big platters used at high-brow functions like this. He seized it, shaking the fruit off onto the table, then turned and threw and it shattered an Infected’s neck just as she was about to lunge at Tanith from behind. The Infected collapsed and lay there twitching. Erskine moved along the wall and stepped into another Infected as he attacked, delivering a series of sharp blows to his face and solar plexus, and then throwing him into one of the tables. Erskine snatched up a knife that skittered toward him and within moments reached Tanith. She threw him a grateful look, breathing hard.

“They keep coming through the window,” she said. She shoved the Infected trying to bear down on her sword, kicked him in the groin and then took off his head. “They took a lot of bodies away with them, too.”

“The Baron’s stocking up on Ancient blood,” Erskine said grimly, taking a raking of claws along his protected shoulder to step in, seize the man’s arm and pull him in tight to slice his throat. He shoved the body into one of the other Infected. “Dusk isn’t here?”

“No. Haven’t seen Sanguine either. Guess we know what they were doing all day.”

 _Recruiting_ would have been the nice way of saying it, Erskine thought bitterly. Something exploded on the other side of the room and the building shook. Erskine stumbled and let himself fall under one of the Infected’s reach, then swept up into a crouch and slid the knife in through her ribs to her heart. He pushed her off and stepped back-to-back with Tanith, and caught a glimpse of Ghastly’s van burning. The Infected, thrown off their feet, got back up and took a moment to watch and try to figure out a better way to break through their defence. Erskine let his hands fall loose and ready by his sides. Tanith took the chance to catch her breath before the air got too clogged with smoke.

“Tell me they don’t know what they’re doing,” she said quietly.

“They know what they’re doing,” Erskine said softly, holding one of the Infected’s gaze. His eyes were wide, dilated, the look of an addict. The look of a starving wolf. They moved like starving wolves, too—prowling around the two sorcerers, watching for an opening or at least content with capturing their attention while the building caught on fire. “They just can’t care. Their master has given them an order and they can’t refuse it. For the new ones, it’s worse. They might have been able to tell that something was wrong, but the moment blood was spilled they’d have lost all control.”

“I don’t understand.”

Erskine nodded toward the edges of the room. A handful of the Infected had forsaken the fight entirely to feed, mouths pressed to ragged wounds, throats working as they drank. One whose forearm had been cut off was suckling at her own stump of an elbow. The sight made a visceral prickle of horror run down Erskine’s spine, but it was accompanied by the tingling memory of ambrosia on his lips. He clenched his hand against his thigh, his fingers pressed against a faded scar on his palm. “Those are the new ones. The blood calls to them and they can’t resist, even against their master’s command. They’ve probably only been Infected for an hour at the most. For the rest, it’s already been a lifetime. They can’t imagine anything else. Even if they survived the cure, they would be broken.”

For a moment Tanith didn’t say anything. Then, “So you’re saying death is a mercy by now.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Okay.”

The Infected came to a silent consensus and attacked. Erskine went low. Tanith went high. She’d fought with Saracen before, so Erskine knew she was familiar with the Dead Men’s tactics, but he was surprised by how easily she was able to adjust her technique to his. If Ghastly didn’t ask this woman out soon he was an idiot, and if he sat and sulked when _Erskine_ asked her out then he was even more of an idiot.

Not that Erskine would, except to make said idiot get up and do something about it. But he understood why Saracen liked her.

Neither of them were holding back anymore. Death, as Erskine said, was a mercy, both to the Infected and to the officers who would try and put them in prison if they arrived on the scene with any Infected alive.

First there were a dozen Infected trying to flank them. Then eight. Then half that. Three. Two. One of them, with mad eyes and a shriek, leapt and was impaled by Tanith’s sword. The other backed away, his gaze more on the blood-slick floor than on Tanith and Erskine. He dropped to his knees and put his hands in the puddle and brought them to his mouth, and Erskine stepped forward and thrust the knife into his throat.

He let it slide out of his hand as the Infected toppled over, and then turned. His nose was burning, his eyes were watering; he spread his hands and summoned a bubble of purer air around the area by the window. The whole of the far entrance was alight, and the fire had spread to the ceiling. The Baron was gone; Bliss strode half-bent around the room, checking bodies and physically picking up those who were still alive, forcing anyone still mobile to shoulder their weight and stagger toward the window. The sight of the massacre made the first ones pause, but then Fergus and Desmond limped forward, each with a relative’s arm slung over their shoulders, and the others followed like sheep too afraid to do anything else. Tanith sheathed her wiped sword and went to pluck the glass out of the windowsill, and then helped Desmond through first, giving him quiet instructions. Rover was still trying to get some of those too terrified to do anything but sit to move, bent over and face already sooty.

Skulduggery strode forward, his eyeless gaze taking in the blood-bath. “Where’s Saracen?”

“He went up the stairs,” said Erskine. “Where’s Valkyrie?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m here,” said Valkyrie, coughing. They all turned to see her yanking her pretty cousin along by the arm to escape the flames approaching the open door behind them. Carol, Erskine thought, still stood upright and rigid, her face pale and eyes wide, in a kind of stunned shock. Valkyrie herself was ashen, that particular sort which said she’d thrown up in the recent past, but her eyes were at least clear. “Where’s Mum?”

“I saw her and Beryl go upstairs,” said Fergus, turning from having forced one of the others through the window into Desmond’s ready arms. His gaze raked across Valkyrie and Carol. He was breathing fast, Erskine noted. Dangerously so. “Where’s Crystal?”

Valkyrie’s face went greyer. “Uncle Fergus—”

Fergus went rigid. “ _Where is my daughter_? _”_

Carol’s eyes filled with tears and she started shaking, and her knees buckled. Erskine caught her before she hit the floor, and her body convulsed in his arms as she threw up into the congealing blood.

“She’s—she’s gone,” Valkyrie said, and looked surprised when her voice broke.

“Later,” said Bliss, coming up from behind with an unconscious man in his arms. He handed him to Tanith over the window. Rover was behind him, coughing into his sleeve and pushing two curled-up and shivering children before him using the air.

“The others?” Skulduggery asked.

Rover shook his head. “They’re catatonic. Take these and I’ll go back.”

“Leave them,” Bliss ordered. “There’s no time.”

“They’ll burn!” Valkyrie objected.

“He’s right,” said Skulduggery, reaching down to pick up one of the children—a teen, really, not much younger than Valkyrie. “The fire will reach the kitchen soon, and the cellar. This whole building could go up at any moment. We need to save the ones that can be saved now.”

For a moment Rover stood rebelliously, but then he slumped and reached down to pick the little girl, and stayed bent-over as he headed to the window. The smoke was thick and black, now, and trying to escape through the same opening as they were.

“Edgley,” said Bliss to Fergus, who still stood staring back toward the other half of the functions room. Then, jerkily, he turned and climbed over the windowsill. Silently Erskine picked up Carol and headed for the exit, scrambling over the sill with a grunt. Desmond appeared in front of them. He looked surprisingly composed, at least until Erskine got close enough to see the mad glittering fragility in his eyes.

“Saracen needs help to get the others down from the next floor up,” he said. “It’s too far to jump. They’re on the balcony just around the corner. Tanith said to say we’re gathering the others on the nearest green.”

“Take her,” said Rover, handing over the little girl. Desmond took her, looking vaguely surprised, and Rover and Skulduggery both vanished into the darkness. He glanced down at Valkyrie when she appeared wordlessly by his side, pale and wide-eyed, and Erskine saw some of the tension leave his shoulders.

Bliss took Carol from Erskine, who thankfully shook out his hands, and then with a snap of his fingers conjured a flame, turning toward the green. “This way.”

“Won’t the light alert any other Infected who might be in the area?” Valkyrie asked.

“If they’re here, they already know where we’re going,” said Erskine, “and us having no light just means they’ll kill us faster.”

“Oh.”

They were halfway to the green and could see the faint white light of phone screens when the building went up with an explosion that rumbled the ground all the way to the cliff. Erskine flinched and the others all whipped around, and faint exclamations and cries echoed across the turf. Bliss kept walking solidly, but Erskine could see the tightness in his face.

“The others?” asked Tanith when they reached them. In the darkness, her bloodied leathers looked black. She’d make a good Dead Man, Erskine found himself thinking as he stretched out a hand to feel the air.

“They’re coming,” he said, dropping his hand and stationing himself on the far side, facing the quiet whisper of the ocean’s waves. A few moments later Melissa and Beryl stumbled out of the darkness, and with something between a cry and a sob Valkyrie leapt forward to bury her face in her mother’s shoulder. Without a word Fergus pulled his white-faced wife into his chest, and Desmond wrapped his arms around his two girls. The others trickled out of the shadows; other than the two women, four others had been saved by fleeing upstairs, all of them staff members of the golf club.

Silently the Dead Men took their positions around the pitiful group, waiting for the distant sirens to come closer and watching the golf club burn.


	17. Good guys convene

Ghastly called Erskine while they were at the hospital. Skulduggery had faded into the darkness just before the Guard had arrived, since he had no disguise and no way to get one. He said he’d find a car and come back to take them back to the Hibernian. The comment was a hopeful one; none of them could be certain if the Hibernian was still safe for a retreat, or if they’d have time to get there. Neither Dusk nor Sanguine had been in Haggard, and Dusk could have infected dozens more overnight.

Tanith had gone with Skulduggery. Erskine’s Ghastly-tailored clothes had repelled enough blood that he didn’t look quite as suspicious, but Tanith looked like she’d bathed in it. And Bliss had given a short statement and then left for the Sanctuary.

Erskine was sitting with his jacket off and his waistcoat unbuttoned in the waiting-room when the call came through. He was staring down at his bloodied hands, remembering how easily the blade had cut through flesh—which was usual—and trying not to remember what the Infected would have been feeling—which wasn’t. He rose and moved pointedly to the safe side of the ‘no phones’ zone, and answered the phone wearily but gladly, leaning back against the wall. “Ghastly.”

“You sound awful,” said Ghastly.

“You can talk,” grumbled Erskine, speaking Irish, but quietly in case someone in the hospital had been more diligent in their language studies than most kids were these days. Ghastly sounded just as tired, but there was no way he’d have greeted Erskine like that if one of them had been taken or killed. The other three were alive. “Get the feeling we’re back in a war-zone?”

Ghastly barked a laugh. “I said the same thing to Anton earlier. We lost this one, Erskine. We lost it badly.”

“How badly?”

“Vengeous has the Grotesquery. You?”

Erskine looked toward the Guard, the group of Edgleys and survivors, and the small squad of sorcerers. Haggard’s force wasn’t big enough to handle something like this, and it didn’t have a hospital; they had been commuted to the nearest, which happened to be in the next county. “All Dead Men accounted for, plus Tanith and Bliss,” he said. “Fergus and Desmond are scratched up, Melissa is bruised, Beryl and Carol are in shock but uninjured, Valkyrie is fine.”

There was a pause while Ghastly did the math and realised there was one short. “And Crystal?”

“Didn’t make it. Valkyrie said she had her throat torn open when she snuck out to have a smoke.”

“And the others?”

“Ten, not including our people. Six of those worked at the golf-club.” And two of the remaining four were the children Rover had rescued. They’d lost someone on the way into Wexford. He’d been airlifted, and he still hadn’t made it. Erskine had heard the statistics, but now he was _thinking_ about it, and he couldn’t help the way his voice grew tight. “Sixteen people, Ghastly. There were over _fifty people_ at that reunion including the staff and the musicians, and only sixteen made it out. How? Why? Why would the Baron do something so out of character? He isn’t Serpine. He doesn’t go for the showy slaughters.”

“I don’t know,” Ghastly said quietly. Erskine took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What does Descry say?”

“Descry’s not really in the condition to say anything.”

Every muscle in Erskine’s body seized up. “What? What do you mean?”

“He’s fine,” Ghastly said quickly. “He’s not hurt. Anton’s exhausted and pissed as hell, and Dexter’s having his arm fixed, but we’re okay. Well. _We_ are. Stentor and Civet are dead.”

“Ghastly. What happened to Descry?”

The tailor sighed. “What do you think? He was wrong. He was wrong and then we got slammed by four dozen Infected, a vampire and a burrower.”

“Is he responding?”

“Yes,” Ghastly said, and then hesitated. “Mostly. We’re giving him a bit of space.”

“He’s going to need a little more by the time we get there,” Erskine said quietly. “If anything could break through his block, the memories he’s going to get might just do it.”

“Where are you all now?” Ghastly asked. “If you lost that many people, then—”

“We’re at the Wexford General Hospital,” Erskine said. “The golf club is toast. It got set on fire and blew up soon after we evacuated. We’ve been letting the guard believe we’re government agents protecting Val’s family from domestic terrorists. It’s not far from the truth, anyway.”

“Who did you call to get justification for that?”

“Corrival. Who else? Retired or not, he still has the general’s voice down pat. By the way, Skulduggery torched your van.”

“He did what.”

“He drove it in through the lobby and practically into the Baron. I didn’t actually _see_ how it got set on fire, but I’m blaming it for the building going up.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Ghastly muttered. “First my boat, now my van. I’m going to make him pay for a new one, and then I’m going to kill him.” In spite of everything, Erskine almost smiled. He heard Kenspeckle’s voice, loud in the background, and Ghastly sighed. “I have to go; Anton’s trying to get up again. You’re safe to come back, but you’d better give us a ring before you get here.”

“Will do.”

Erskine hung up and crossed over the line again. Carol and Beryl were sitting on either side of Fergus, staring into space, and he had his arms around them. His knuckles were bandaged. Valkyrie had enough self-awareness to curl up in her chair and lean into her father’s side, while Melissa was resting against his shoulder. The other survivors who hadn’t needed much medical attention were scattered around the waiting-room, not looking at anyone as the Guard took their statements.

Erskine took a seat heavily beside Rover and Saracen. “Where’s my cuddle?” he grumbled. “The Edgleys get their cuddles. Where’s mine?”

Rover stirred from his slump against the wall, letting his dogtags fall from where he’d been staring blankly down at them. “Well, if that’s all you wanted, Ravel …”

“Ew. No. You’re all covered in cream.”

“He’s a creamy Rover,” Saracen mumbled. He, too, was slumped against the wall, his eyes closed. Erskine’s clothes were stained and Rover had minor burns and smoke inhalation, but judging by his paleness Saracen had used his magic a little more than was wise. Especially given that Vengeous had the Grotesquery and tonight was the night of alignment.

“I can always be a _screamy_ Rover if you’d prefer,” Rover offered.

“I’ll leave Dex to take care of that, cheers.”

“Is that who was on the phone?” Saracen asked without bothering to stifle a yawn.

“No, it was Ghastly. Skulduggery might have to think twice about going to meet him tonight.”

“How did they go?”

Erskine tried to smile. “I hope neither of you have plans for tonight. We have to go save the world.”

“Oh, good,” said Rover. “I needed to meet my quota.”

 

They made it back to the Sanctuary in double-time. The Guard had been convinced enough by the Dead Men’s demeanours, efficiency and weariness not to put up much of a fight when they said they were taking their Edgleys into custody. It helped that one of the officers had a mother who’d been in the service, and she recognised their manner, even without the dogtags.

She’d asked if the others needed to have a guard on them. The Dead Men had exchanged looks and agreed that although it wasn’t likely the remaining Edgleys were in danger, best to be safe. It was a good thing they really weren’t in any more danger from the Baron, or else the poor officers wouldn’t stand a chance.

Then the Dead Men had taken the two sets of Edgleys that were _theirs_ and met Skulduggery and Tanith two blocks down, who were waiting with a van whose origins Erskine chose not to ask about. They, at least, had good news—of a sort.

“We know where the Baron is,” Tanith said without preamble as they got into the van. She looked annoyed, and she was holding herself gingerly. Skulduggery’s suit was a touch more threadbare than it had before.

“How?” Rover demanded. “Are you doing a Saracen now? I object. I’m jealous. That’s not fair.”

“Springheeled Jack,” said Skulduggery. “Sanguine broke him out of prison to help with the international assassinations, but he realised he was being used to bring back the Faceless Ones and decided we could make better use of the information than he could on his own—in exchange for us not arresting him again, of course. Tanith objected, but she was a little too worn out to actually make due on the arrest.”

“I’ll get him,” Tanith muttered. “He’s mine. I’ll get him. Not that _you_ helped at all.”

“So where’s the Baron, then?” Erskine asked. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, so Valkyrie wound up in her mother’s lap and Rover sat on Erskine and Saracen, slumping against Erskine’s shoulder.

“Clearwater Hospital,” Skulduggery answered.

The Midnight Hotel was still out near the Monart Destination Spa and Shudder had cleared it out for the Edgleys’ sake, so they didn’t need to worry about picking up other patrons. Skulduggery took them there and drove into the garage, and they used the Hotel to get to Dublin quickly. Anton didn’t usually like doing any of those things, but this was, as Skulduggery said, an emergency.

The Edgleys needed somewhere to stay, somewhere safe, somewhere the Baron wouldn’t know about. The Midnight Hotel was the Dead Men’s best chance of getting where they needed to be in time to properly plan anything, so the Edgleys couldn’t stay there. They’d figure something out. If Erskine had the time he knew the perfect place, but he didn’t; they needed a place overnight. Maybe Corrival would take them.

Ghastly and the rest were already at the Sanctuary by the time Erskine’s group got there. Bliss had arrived barely before them, having made the physical drive while the Dead Men were stuck with the Guard.

When Erskine walked into the Sanctuary meeting room, Hopeless was the first person he looked for. Hopeless was seated with his head bowed against his clasped hands, and from what Erskine could see he looked particularly haggard, but he lifted his head when the rest of them came in and at least his gaze focussed on the physical. Morwenna sat at the head of the table, and Guild paced back and forth behind them. Corrival was on their other side, but he rose when they came in. Ghastly stood behind Anton’s chair, Dexter sat beside him—all on Hopeless’s side of the table.

“What happened?” Guild snapped, whirling on the Dead Men.

“Thurid,” said Morwenna, also rising and coming around the table. “First things first. Mr Edgley?” She spoke gently to Fergus. He looked at her with dull eyes. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr Edgley.”

Fergus didn’t say anything. He seemed beyond words. But he nodded, silently, and held his girls tighter. Beryl let out a whimper, but it was hard to tell if it was in response to her husband’s grip or Morwenna’s words. Carol said and did nothing at all.

“Do we have a safe place for them?” Morwenna asked, glancing toward the Dead Men.

“My place,” Corrival said before Erskine could. “The Baron’s distracted tonight. They’ll be safe at my place.”

“That’s only a short-term solution,” said Bliss. He was looking at Hopeless, and while his expression was his usual one the very fact he was so focussed on Hopeless made Erskine tense. “The Baron has set a precedence now. They should get out of Haggard. For good.”

“I know a place,” said Erskine, and almost froze as every eye turned toward him. It was a good thing he was used to being under scrutiny, used to not showing he was anxious, and so continued without missing a beat. “They’ll be safer there than anywhere else except the Hotel. It’s international, so no one in Ireland will be able to touch them.”

“International?” Corrival asked. “Where?”

Erskine shook his head. “I’m under oath.” He was and he wasn’t, technically; he had every right to tell them. He just didn’t want to. It would only be a distraction right now, a distraction they didn’t need. “But we’d have access, and they’d be safe.” He managed a smile. “Like witness protection, but without actually having to pretend to be someone else.”

“No.” Every gaze moved off Erskine to Desmond Edgley. He wavered a bit at the attention, but then firmed up—eyes glittering, expression one of fragile resolve. “I’m not going to _flee Ireland_. This is my country. This is my _home._ I want to stay here.”

“So do I,” said Melissa.

“I don’t know any sorcerers in other countries,” said Valkyrie. “I want to learn from the people here.”

Corrival looked at Fergus. “Edgley?”

Fergus looked back, and then at Erskine. “Take us anywhere,” he said, and his voice was defeated, “so long as my wife and d- daughter—” His voice broke and the tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “S- so long as they’re _safe_.”

Erskine held his gaze. “You’ll be safe,” he promised quietly. “You’ll all be safe.”

Corrival nodded. “The rest of you don’t need me anymore, then. I’ll take them home for tonight and maybe the next couple of days. However long you need to set things up, Ravel.”

“Take Tanith,” Skulduggery said. “We can pick her up on the way out to Clearwater if we need her.”

“Oh, fine, leave me behind,” Tanith muttered, but she looked a little relieved.

Dexter laughed. “We’re going up against the Baron and a demi-god. We need all the help we can get.”

“You make it sound like we wouldn’t be able to defeat a demi-god in an instant, Dex,” said Larrikin in an injured tone. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you had no confidence in us at all.”

“ _I_ have every confidence in you,” said Corrival, clapping a hand to Larrikin’s shoulder as he passed. “In your ability to be frivolous and unreasonable in the face of danger, anyway. Come along, Edgleys.” He took Fergus’s arm gently but firmly and led him out of the room, and like ducklings the rest of them trailed after. Valkyrie tried to glance back, but her mother pulled her closer and Tanith was blocking her view, and then they were through the door and gone.

For a moment there was silence. Morwenna sighed and went to her chair, and sat. “What happened?”

“Baron Vengeous suffered a psychological break,” said Skulduggery.

“ _Without_ the aforementioned unreasonable frivolities,” snapped Guild.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “I’m not being frivolous. The Baron did something wildly out of character, and therefore completely unpredictable: he attacked the Edgley reunion without regard for the secrecy pact.”

“Why?” Guild demanded.

“It _did_ draw half of us away from guarding the Grotesquery,” Erskine pointed out in a tone which the unkind would have called ‘condescending’. Erskine didn’t really care. Guild did, and shot him an ugly look.

“Why _these_ mortals?” he answered tersely. “Why risk everything even Mevolent’s people agreed with to attack _these_ mortals?”

There was a pause. Erskine automatically looked at Hopeless. Everyone looked at Hopeless. He raised his head and signed, ‘The Edgleys are descendants of the Ancients.’

Guild went rigid with the translation, his face turning white and then red in quick succession. “The line of the Ancients died out centuries ago—if it even existed in the first place!”

Hopeless shook his head. Ghastly answered for him. “Sorcerers only thought they did. The Edgleys are it. The Baron knows that. He needs their blood for the ritual to revive the Grotesquery.”

“That’s why he was after Valkyrie,” Dexter added. “She’s learning magic. The rest of her family don’t know.”

“He just decided we were making it too complicated to actually get her in time,” Saracen muttered.

“He was able to secure twenty-nine of them,” Bliss observed. “Likely more. Even without knowledge of sorcerers, taking into account extended family, that will be enough blood for Vengeous’s purposes.”

“You’ll probably need to assign Scrutinous and Random to the survivors,” Skulduggery added.

“Why,” Guild said coldly, “are we only just hearing about this?”

Skulduggery shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

“It didn’t seem—” For a moment Guild was angry beyond speaking, and even Rover could see his top about to blow when they were saved by the Grand Mage. Morwenna’s voice was very quiet.

“How long have you known?”

“Since last year,” Ghastly admitted.

“How long since it became relevant?”

“Yesterday,” said Skulduggery, “and with all due respect to Elder Guild’s tantrum, we were rather busy—first arranging guards, then finding the Baron, then rescuing Fergus, and _then_ securing the Grotesquery.”

“And you did a fantastic job,” Guild said coldly. Skulduggery looked at him silently with his eyeless gaze. Guild looked away first.

“And you knew?” Morwenna asked Hopeless. He looked down and nodded. “And you said nothing.”

‘We were securing the Grotes—’

Morwenna reached out and took his hand, effectively cutting him off. “Don’t,” she said calmly, “treat me like a neophyte, Hopeless. You had ample time to at least bring this issue to _me_. Why didn’t you?”

Hopeless looked her in the face, closed his eyes and sighed. ‘There’s a traitor in the Sanctuary.’

Which Morwenna knew, of course. But Guild didn’t, and it would only make things worse if he knew they’d thought it was _him_.

“Ridiculous,” Guild said flatly, crossing his arms and turning from Skulduggery to Hopeless.

“Exactly how do you think the Baron got out of jail, Guild?” Erskine snapped. “How did Sanguine know where he _was_? You know Dragunov would never have become so careless as to let that knowledge out, and Vengeous isn’t getting support from over in Russia—he’s getting it _here_. In Ireland. Someone helped him, someone in the Sanctuary.”

“And I suppose you know who it is,” Guild said coldly.

“We do,” said Skulduggery. “Unfortunately, we have no real proof save Saracen’s magic.”

“You’re the one who found this out?” Morwenna asked. Saracen nodded.

“That’s it?” Guild snorted. “The word of a sorcerer who refuses to tell anyone how his magic even works?”

“Not just Saracen’s word,” said Erskine. “We also have our stunning set of coincidences.”

“Which aren’t enough,” Dexter grumbled. “Which is why we didn’t _say_ anything.”

“We wouldn’t have dreamed of bothering you without knowing we could bring you evidence, Elder Guild,” Skulduggery said. “We understand how you’re all about justice.”

Guild’s face flushed slowly in rising anger, but Morwenna cut in before he could answer. “And you felt it too dangerous to risk bringing this … intelligence to either of us, even a suspicion?” Hopeless nodded. “Then it’s someone close to us, someone with whom we interact regularly?” Hopeless nodded again. For a moment Morwenna regarded him, but finally she nodded and sat back. “Very well.”

“Grand Mage, you cannot _allow_ them to—” Guild began.

“I’m not _allowing_ them anything,” Morwenna said. “I wish I could have been told about the Edgleys earlier, but Hopeless is our peer. If he chose to hire the Dead Men on our behalf in order to protect them and investigate how the Baron escaped from Russia, he has that right. Just try not to do it again with at least giving us a little forewarning.”

This last was to Hopeless, resigned and weary and wry. The faintest of sheepish smiles touched Hopeless’s eyes, and he nodded.

“This is all very well and good,” Guild snapped, “but by now the Grotesquery has been revived. Precisely how to do you plan to stop it, Dead Men?”

“By thinking a wonderful thought,” said Rover, and Saracen grinned.

“Any happy little thought?”

“Please,” said Anton, sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed, “don’t let him start singing.”

“Spoilsport.”

“We have to defeat the Baron, who is wearing Vile’s armour, and destroy a risen demi-god before the celestial bodies are in proper alignment. Singing will not help.”

“It’ll help _me_.”

“We have the list of creatures which make up the Grotesquery,” said Skulduggery, skipping neatly over their argument, “and the Baron’s location, and we have all of us. We also have Tanith, and, provided she is amenable—and even if she isn’t—we have China as well.”

“My sister was taken by the Baron last night,” Bliss said, and there was an abrupt silence.

“Ah,” said Skulduggery. “In that case, we’re short one potential ally. Did you, by any chance, agree to guard the Edgleys in the hope that the Baron would show up?”

Bliss looked at him with a gaze nearly as empty as the skeleton’s. “Whether he attacked the reunion or the laboratory, it would have given us the chance to track him to his headquarters. That was reason enough.”

“Of course.”

“Enough,” Anton said, opening his eyes and standing. “To defeat either Vengeous or the Grotesquery, we must first go to Vengeous and the Grotesquery. Standing around talking about it won’t get it done.”

“Take as many Cleavers as you need,” said Morwenna. “Hopeless, you realise you have to stay here.”

Hopeless hesitated, but then he sighed and nodded.

“Excellent,” said Skulduggery. “In that case, while Bliss goes to assemble the Cleavers I’m going to suggest a Dead Men’s convention in Hopeless’s office.”


	18. Who knows what darkness?

If Rover didn’t know better, he’d say that there were _secrets_ going around among the Dead Men. Actually, he did know better, and he could say for certain there _were_ secrets going around the Dead Men. Larrikin was better at reading people than people assumed. He just didn’t care enough to change his behaviour.

The Dead Men trooped into Hopeless’s office like a string of schoolboys who’d been called to the headmaster’s office right after a detention. Rover hadn’t been in Hopeless’s office yet. It already had a desk, a chair and two couches, one of which Rover immediately claimed for his own by sprawling on it and then wriggling until he was on his back. Skulduggery took one of the corners, Erskine the other couch, and the others leaned in various places around the room.

“Don’t tell me,” Rover said, looping his fingers together and putting them behind his head. “You married the Baron on the sly and after so much time apart foolishly submitted to the cravings of true love, and very sneakily left important information lying around—say, the Baron’s location—until finally your wayward soul-mate was at last freed, and now you have only to confess and beg our aid in reforming him so you may at last pursue your happily ever after.”

They all stared at him, even Hopeless. He grinned back at them until Skulduggery said finally, “No.”

“Well, now you’ve gone and disappointed me. I was hoping for some juicy relationship drama.”

Dexter laughed, but it wasn’t his usual tension-breaking laugh. It was brittle, and it only made the atmosphere thicken. He lifted Rover’s feet to sit down, and put them on his lap. “If only,” he said. “If only.”

“You say that like you know what this is about—” Rover stopped. “Wait. _Do_ you know what this is about?”

“Yes,” Dexter said. Hopeless activated a sigil on the door and moved to sit at his desk, rubbing his eyes.

“Um.” Saracen raised his hand. “I know too. Is this such a good idea? Can’t it wait until _after_ the whole killing-a-demi-god thing? Way, way after? Or possibly until the end of forever?”

“No,” said Skulduggery, but then he fell silent. He had taken off his hat, and although he wasn’t fiddling with it, the very fact it was still in his hand said that Skulduggery was extremely nervous. In fact, if Rover wasn’t mistaken, Skulduggery was _clutching_ it. Ghastly and Erskine exchanged baffled looks.

“Are you sure?” Saracen asked. “I don’t mind. I mean, what’s a little secret between friends?” He laughed nervously. Saracen. _Laughed_ nervously. That meant that he had no idea how this was going to go, but that it could go very, very badly. Suddenly not feeling too much like sprawling, Rover pulled up his feet and turned to sit properly on the couch.

“Well?” he asked expectantly. “Don’t keep us in suspense. It’s not fair if that lot knows and we don’t. I’m assuming Descry’s a member of ‘that lot’, by the way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course he’s not,” said Dexter. Hopeless mustered something that approached a wry smile, but it faded too soon to reach critical mass.

“He is,” said Skulduggery. “I didn’t even know there was a ‘that lot’ until a year ago. I thought I’d done a better job covering than that. I really should have known better. I mean, it _is_ Hopeless, and Hopeless has a habit of knowing people better than they know themselves.”

“Skulduggery,” said Ghastly, still looking bemused but now also looking concerned, “what’s wrong?”

Skulduggery looked at his hat, turning its in his hands one way, then the other. Rover had never seen him like this before. So … ashamed. “When I came back from having disappeared,” he started, then stopped.

Unconsciously Rover leaned forward. They all did. That’s what Skulduggery wanted to talk about? About those five years when he’d disappeared? They’d been bugging him sporadically about it ever since he’d refused to say where he’d been. All anybody knew for sure was that those five years must have been hell, but whatever happened, it had renewed Skulduggery’s passion for the fight. At least, Rover assumed that’s all anybody could say. Hopeless could well know and nobody could tell if he was just choosing not to say anything, even though he couldn’t actually read Skulduggery. Obviously, that was what had happened.

But now Rover thought about it, he didn’t remember Dexter asking Skulduggery where he’d been after those first couple of months when they’d been more concerned with celebrating his return.

“This isn’t the time,” said Anton. “We should handle Vengeous first. Then you can tell us.”

“No,” said Skulduggery. “It has to be now. It’s relevant.”

“Relevant to Baron Vengeous?” Rover laughed. “Well, you’ve already said you’re not the Baron’s secret lover, so I suppose that must mean you were his _rival_. Someone like, I don’t know, Lord Vile. And now you want our help to get your armour back.”

It was meant to be a joke. That was what Rover did. He _joked_. And Skulduggery secretly being Vile was just as ludicrous as Skulduggery secretly being the Baron’s lover. Except that Skulduggery’s head lowered, and his hat stilled, and he said nothing. Dexter looked up at the ceiling. Saracen looked down at the floor. Hopeless closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his steepled hands.

Erskine sat up. Anton shifted slowly into a guarded position. And Ghastly … Rover didn’t look at Ghastly.

Rover’s smile faded. “That was a joke,” he explained, as if they couldn’t tell. “Because you’re not Vile. That’s just … stupid. I mean, Vile killed Ghastly’s mother.” He laughed again, but it was a forced laugh in a room suddenly thick with tension. And Skulduggery still wasn’t saying anything. Rover waited for one more suddenly racing heartbeat and then spoke again. “Skulduggery? Come on, Skulduggery, tell me I’m wrong.”

After a never-ending moment Skulduggery stirred, and Rover almost relaxed there and then, because of course Skulduggery _would_ say he was wrong. “You’re wrong,” said the skeleton, and Rover grinned. “I don’t want it back.” The grin froze and slid off Rover’s face like a raw egg on a pat of butter. “It took too long and cost too much to give it up in the first place.” Still, icy silence. “The thing is—” Skulduggery faltered, but no one filled the gap, and after a moment he went on. It sounded as if he was forcing the words out. “The thing is … I could hear it calling to me. When I fought Vengeous a couple of hours ago. I’m not sure if I—”

“Stop.”

Ghastly’s voice didn’t come out like a whip-crack, or anything so cliché. In fact it was so quiet it was almost the absence of sound. Like that single word had stolen anyone else’s power to speak. Rover looked at him and then looked away, wishing he hadn’t in the first place. Ghastly stood rigid, staring at the back wall like he was made of stone.

“It’s a prank,” Rover said, and tried to make himself laugh, but nothing came out. He wasn’t even sure he’d managed to change his expression. Skulduggery, Lord Vile? How could Skulduggery be Lord Vile?

 _Don’t answer that,_ he thought quickly, and saw Hopeless’s head tilt in his direction.

“You vanished just before Lord Vile arrived,” Anton said low, “and you returned just as Vile disappeared.”

Skulduggery said nothing.

“Cassandra Pharos saw you overcome by necromancy. She assumed you were dead.”

Silence.

“How?”

Anton’s voice wasn’t sharp, but it was so flat that Saracen flinched. If Skulduggery had still had physiological reflexes, Rover was sure, he would have too.

“I don’t know what you want me to—”

“How did you go from a good and honourable man to a monster?” Anton asked with a quiet inexorability that overrode anything Skulduggery might have used to evade.

Skulduggery didn’t move, but it still seemed as if he hunched into himself. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” said Anton. “Yes, it matters.”

“I’m not trying to make excus—”

“You no longer have the right to decide what you can and cannot say.”

Hopeless tapped the desk, and the moment anyone looked at him he signed, ‘Skulduggery, tell them.’

Of course he could say that. Because, of course, Hopeless knew. Rover’s hand felt numb. It took a moment to realise that was because Dexter was gripping his wrist so tightly it was cutting off his circulation, and that realisation made him come aware of the fact that he was breathing just a shade too fast to be practical.

Skulduggery didn’t do anything for a moment, but then he crushed his hat in his fists. “I wanted to know why,” he said in a low voice. “Why didn’t I die? Why did I come back like I did, so full of unending rage? The war wasn’t close to being won. It wasn’t giving me any answers. So I decided I had to go and find answers of my own, in the Necromancers’ Temple. But I … I needed a disguise. They wouldn’t have let me in just as I was. I needed to make them think I was one of them.”

One of them. The words rang in Rover’s head and as if they were a magical sponge they soaked up all the turbulence in his mind. Abruptly he sat up and smiled, a desperately relieved smile. “But you can’t be Vile,” he said happily. “You’re an Elemental. You can’t be a necromancer too. Magic doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m an ambidextrous sorcerer,” said Skulduggery, and Rover’s smile ran away from his face.

“So I commissioned a suit of armour,” Skulduggery continued. “I’d never used necromancy before. I made sure it contained palladium and platinum, so it might amplify … whatever little necromancy I could muster. Enough to make them think I was powerful enough to let into the Temple. But I didn’t—”

He fell silent then, and looked at Rover, and that was when Rover realised the burning in his chest was because his ‘shade too fast’ breathing had turned into hyperventilation. He bent inward and gripped his knees, and couldn’t be sure whether the roar in his ears was his pulse or the others shouting. He felt Dexter supporting him on one side and Anton’s hand on his head, his voice sounding low and rough in his ear.

“Count off, idiot.”

 _Well, this is humiliating,_ Rover thought, and counted twice in his head before trying to exhale. He counted again and inhaled, and counted again and exhaled, and kept doing that until his breathing was actually _breathing_ and not the result of a couple of soggy airless paper bags pretending. Dexter was on one side, Anton on the other, and when Rover lifted his flushed face he saw the others all but clustered around the sofa. It almost made him smile, that instinctive concern over something he hadn’t done since before he’d known them, but the smile never reached fruition when his gaze landed on Skulduggery.

The memory of the last few minutes threatened to make his lungs rise to his closed throat again, but Anton was rubbing the two-beat on the back of his neck and Rover obeyed it without thinking.

“I’d say carry on,” he managed after a moment, “but I’d really rather take the last ten minutes back and have them refunded. Or maybe just exchanged. Can we get them exchanged?”

Skulduggery shook his head. “There isn’t anything else to tell. I put on the armour, I walked into the Temple and I—” He stopped and he seemed to take a breath, and then he finished, “I became Lord Vile.”

“No,” said Anton without looking up.

“What?”

“No,” Anton repeated. “People don’t _simply become_ something else. There are reasons, there are causes. You told us what happened. You still haven’t explained how.”

“It’s not—”

“ _How did you become Lord Vile_?”

“I already _was_ Lord Vile!”

The whole room went still. Anton shifted slowly to look at Skulduggery. After a moment, so did Rover. The skeleton stood there, rigid and gripping his hat in one hand, his head half-tilted in puzzlement. “I already was,” he repeated, as if to cement that thought. “After my death, I couldn’t—I couldn’t _care_. I tried. I did. But I was just going through the motions. A puppet playing out a memory. I wanted revenge, I wanted answers. I knew it was wrong and I couldn’t … I couldn’t care.”

Hopeless moved forward suddenly, shaking his head and gripping Erskine’s shoulder. Erskine stiffened, his arm jerking in an aborted retaliation, but after a moment he glanced to the side.

‘He came back,’ Hopeless was signing. ‘He came back. He cared enough to come back. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t capable of caring in the first place.’

“He killed Ghastly’s mother,” Erskine said flatly. Hopeless sagged and his fingers twitched to respond, but Erskine went on before he could. “He killed Ghastly’s mother, and our own comrades, and _thousands upon thousands_ of innocent people, and you knew, and you _told no one_.”

His voice rose and then he yanked his arm away and took a few sharp steps toward the wall. Then, changing his mind midway, he veered around Skulduggery and made for the door.

He never actually got there. Just past Skulduggery he stopped short and stared. Rover felt Anton shift beside him, saw gazes moved all over the room and then their owners freeze. Skulduggery looked up, finally and slowly, and heart-wrenchingly still. Rover didn’t want to look, but everyone else was. It was like a train-wreck you knew was there. You had to look. So Rover did.

Ghastly’s face was frozen in a rictus of incredulity and grief and an abiding hurt too deep to call betrayal. It was like he couldn’t move; Rover couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He stood there, his face craggy with scars and anguish and _fury_ so strong as to be paralysing. As if the slightest movement would make him snap.

With a crawling chill Rover knew Skulduggery would move. He would move because he’d given up his clan crest, because he _did_ care, because he’d believe letting Ghastly pulverise him would be the only way he could say he was sorry. Before Rover could stop to think he was on his feet and grabbed Ghastly’s shoulder.

Pain exploded in his face and it spread to his neck and back and everywhere. The entirety of his existence swirled, so he wasn’t sure what was up and down or if that ringing in his ears was his brain leaking out.

Then it faded into an unintelligible buzz, and Anton’s rough voice saying, _“Damn_ it, you fool, answer me!”

Rover whimpered and it made his whole head ache so violently that his gut rolled. He only didn’t throw up because it would make everything hurt that much worse if he did. He forced his eyes open. His vision swam, but he caught snatches of Anton and Dexter leaning over him, and beyond them Ghastly trembling with tears on his cheeks. The others were hovering, except they weren’t because Erskine was _leaving_ , vanishing from Rover’s immediate sight followed by the sound of the door slamming.

Saracen vanished and Rover heard him calling Erskine’s name. Rover’s stomach lurched sickeningly with combined relief and dread—relief that Erskine wouldn’t be alone, dread because _Saracen had known_.

Rover took a rasping breath to speak and felt something grind in his cheek and nose, and couldn’t contain the whimper deep in his throat. Someone squeezed his hand.

“Get Professor Grouse,” said Anton without looking up or specifying to whom he was speaking. Hopeless was the one who moved, touching a sigil on the wall which glowed and chimed. The sound made Ghastly jerk, and he spun and moved swiftly away. Rover’s grip tightened on the hand in his and he let out a gurgling whine. Dexter squeezed his shoulder and pulled his hand away to rise and hurry after Ghastly.

Something moved on the edge of his vision. Rover blinked at it and it was Skulduggery, looking at him.

“That should have been me,” he said, barely audible over the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Be quiet,” said Anton without looking up. As if he couldn’t bear it. “Be quiet, Pleasant. Just be quiet.”

The ringing in Rover’s ears grew piercing, and the _thudthudthud_ of footsteps didn’t help. He let out another whimper as the pain became a sucking undertow, and the last thing he felt was Anton’s gentle hand in his.


	19. Exchanging the minutes

“How is Larrikin?” Morwenna asked Shudder. The man was still in his suit from two days ago. It no longer looked anything like a funeral director’s, not unless that funeral director made a habit of autopsying the bodies under his care. The rusty stains from the Infected somehow weren’t as bad as the bright-red drips which had come from Larrikin’s broken face.

Shudder looked at her and his eyes made a shiver run down her spine, a shiver she didn’t let show. “He’s lucky bone didn’t penetrate his brain or cut his spinal cord,” he said emotionlessly, as if he hadn’t almost lost his best friend while inside the Sanctuary itself. “Grouse says he will be healed within a few hours.”

Under any other circumstances, on any other night, Morwenna would have let the issue go. But this wasn’t any other circumstance, and this wasn’t any other night. Guild, thank God, had left to handle international affairs long enough for them to stop the Baron, but the rest of them were back in the meeting-room. For a given definition of ‘the rest of them’.

Morwenna was there, and so was Bliss. So was Hopeless, with his head in his hands, still and silent and not even trying to hide the fact that he was weeping. Skulduggery, standing uncharacteristically in the farthest corner of the farthest wall. Shudder, standing near the door. And that was it. Where the other Dead Men were, Morwenna didn’t have a clue.

“What happened?” she asked.

“It is irrelevant,” Shudder said in exactly the same tone. If his gist could speak beyond wild shrieks, Morwenna imagined that’s what its voice would sound like. Low. Grating as if dragged over glass. The only thing that marked it out was that the gist was violence incarnate, and Shudder’s voice was apathetic to the point of desolation. As if there was nothing left in him but a hollow puppet. He hadn’t even moved since entering; his gaze was fixed on the wall just to the left of Skulduggery.

Morwenna’s skin prickled wildly with unease. “Four of you have vanished,” she said, putting effort into keeping her voice even, “and one of you quite literally almost lost his head. You can’t tell me it wasn’t relevant. What happened? Was it the traitor?”

Shudder stirred, slowly like a dragon prodded into lazy action. His gaze didn’t seem to move, but suddenly Morwenna was sure it was fixed on Skulduggery. “Yes,” said the gist-user. “Yes, it was the traitor.”

Morwenna’s breath caught. She was the Grand Mage, she reminded herself, and she was powerful enough to have the respect of these men. And yet, she knew, if she tried to push Shudder right now she would regret doing so. She didn’t know how or why, but she would. When she risked a glance at Bliss, Bliss was standing quietly, his brow faintly wrinkled. He said nothing either.

Morwenna nodded. “I presume Larrikin will remain behind. What about the rest of you? Can you fight?”

“We’ll fight,” said Shudder, and straightened off the wall, turning toward the door. He paused in the exit and glanced over his shoulder at Skulduggery. “Except you. You stay here. With Hopeless.”

Hopeless flinched. Skulduggery looked at the floor. Morwenna didn’t find words before Shudder was gone.

 

When Erskine had left Hopeless’s office, he remembered having the intent of a destination. Now he couldn’t recall whether he’d had a destination in mind or just meant to have one. Either way he hadn’t _found_ one, because after leaving the office he wandered up and down the Sanctuary’s least populated halls until finally making his way into the crowded rooms of the Repository. There were fewer people in there. He made sure of it, using the air to test his company and avoiding any evidence of others.

Saracen still trotted at his heels like a faithful little dog, saying nothing. Erskine wondered how many times he’d used his magic before letting things take their course.

“Have you done this before?” he asked abruptly before he’d meant to, and his tone came out scathing.

“No.” Saracen’s tone was hesitant enough that Erskine knew he was lying, and he snorted. “Not like you’re thinking,” Saracen clarified, and Erskine stopped short, turning so suddenly that Saracen ran into him.

“Have you _tested_ this on us before?” he demanded.

“Erskine—”

“ _Is this the way it had to happen_?”

“I didn’t go back and do it over!” Saracen burst out impatiently, and almost immediately cringed, his gaze dropping. Erskine said nothing. After a moment Saracen hunched his shoulders. “I went back when Ghastly hit Rover. That’s it, and not far. But I couldn’t change anything. You think I wanted to live through that twice?” He laughed bitterly.

Because that’s what Saracen’s magic did. He wasn’t a mind-reader; he wasn’t even a Sensitive. He knew things by living them and then erasing them. He’d always claimed ‘time-traveller’ was misleading, because he couldn’t _actually_ travel time. He could just send his mind back, his memories, and make changes—sometimes even accidentally. A minute or two was the best he could manage without consequence.

But that didn’t mean it was his _limit_.

“Couldn’t, or didn’t?” Erskine asked coldly.

“I _couldn’t_ ,” Saracen repeated, and although his voice didn’t crack it wavered alarmingly. “Erskine, you all needed to know. If the armour is trying to lure Skulduggery in, then he couldn’t come with us to Clearwater, and you all deserved to know why.”

“How long have you known?”

“Just over a century. Erskine—”

“How did you find out?” Erskine overrode him brutally, his heart thudding in his chest. Because Saracen could _erase time_ , and he usually only did that when something happened worth being erased. Like if one of them died or was hurt so badly it compromised the mission. Erskine had asked him once how many times that had happened. Saracen had told him he didn’t want to know.

Saracen sagged. “You don’t want to—”

“I do. Tell me. How did you find out?”

“Skulduggery found out something that made him lose control.”

“You mean he turned into Vile.”

Saracen closed his eyes and nodded.

“So you went back and made sure it never happened.”

Saracen nodded again.

“And then you went and asked Hopeless about it, and he told you to shut up and tell no one.”

“Erskine—” This time Saracen’s voice _did_ crack, but Saracen didn’t seem to care. He just looked up at Erskine with a very tired expression. It was an expression they had all worn at various times during the war, but by keeping close watch Erskine had managed to spot a pattern to the times when Saracen wore it.

“Did you just jump back?” he demanded. Saracen hesitated. Erskine laughed bitterly. “You don’t play around with our memories more than you absolutely have to, huh?”

“I don’t,” Saracen said softly. “Erskine, I saw everyone’s reactions when Skulduggery turned that time. That was enough for me to want to make sure none of you knew before you were capable of handling the truth. And the only one who could know that was Descry. Why do you think he told Skulduggery the three of us knew in the first place? He knew you were all getting near the point. Maybe he didn’t mean for it to happen so quickly, so suddenly, or maybe he was just waiting for Skulduggery to be ready himself. I don’t know. But do you think he would have let this happen if he didn’t think it was the best thing _to_ happen?”

Erskine didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he _could_. The fact was that he felt angrier at Hopeless than he did at Skulduggery and he wasn’t even sure how or why. The concept was nearly inconceivable. Skulduggery was _Lord Vile_. Erskine almost couldn’t comprehend it. _Lord. Vile._ Lord Vile had killed Ghastly’s mother, had been mysterious and nearly all-powerful and a merciless shadow come to life. People were almost more afraid of him than of Mevolent.

It was easy to keep them apart, no matter what Skulduggery said. It was easy to believe that Skulduggery had just been turned, or gone insane. Erskine had experienced firsthand how broken a man could become once he’d endured more than he could possibly contain. And Skulduggery had _come back_. Skulduggery was here with them now. He’d just told them the truth. Almost two centuries after the fact, but he had.

Once the idea sank in, Erskine knew he would remember every detail of those five years and his anger would be calculated. Right now, all he felt was burning fury, and none of it was actually for _Skulduggery_.

“Descry’s the one you’re angry at.”

“Stop that,” Erskine snapped, his irritability rising. “I don’t need you to repeat these moments to get me to talk, and you need to save your strength for when we go to fight the Baron.”

Saracen crossed his arms. “If you don’t want me to keep repeating these moments, then stop being stubborn and _talk to me_.”

Which meant, of course, that he’d already repeated the minute a few times, trying to figure out how to get Erskine to unbend. Hopeless could do it just by already knowing. Saracen did it by prodding until he found the right key. The difference was that, to most people, he simply already knew too. Just like his father.

With a sound crossed between a grunt and a growl Erskine turned around and stalked off between the uselessly magical items in the Repository. Doggedly Saracen trailed after. And because Erskine knew how Saracen did it, because he knew the idiot actually _would_ keep repeating minutes until he got Erskine to crack, Erskine cracked.

“He should have told someone,” he said explosively. “He knew Skulduggery had fallen that hard and _held it back_. We’re supposed to be a team, and he kept a secret that huge?”

“He’s not _manipulating_ you,” Saracen said, and Erskine wheeled on him so suddenly that Erskine suspected they were both surprised Saracen didn’t wind up flat on the floor with a broken nose. Erskine blew out air, trying to control his pounding heart and the throb of rage in his temples.

“Don’t,” he said tightly, “do that. I will talk to you so long as you _don’t do that._ ”

Saracen nodded. “Alright.”

Erskine turned around again, walking fast just because he had to _move._ The thing was that Saracen was right—even if only because he’d heard it and sent himself back to pre-empt it. Hopeless had kept Skulduggery’s secret, and he kept Erskine’s secrets, and he kept everyone’s secrets because he _had_ to. Usually, that was fine—usually it was even a source of comfort, to know there was someone in Erskine’s life who understood. Someone who could offer the help without Erskine needing to say anything at all.

Over the past century Hopeless had prodded and cajoled and once even outright blackmailed him, all in the name of Erskine’s mental health. But this was the first time Erskine had felt _manipulated_ , as if he was no longer Erskine Ravel. As if, instead, he was just a puppet pulled along by his strings.

Saracen said nothing, but he kept pace, fast enough that Erskine could hear his uneven breathing.

“Do you know how I first found out Hopeless was a mind-reader?” Erskine asked abruptly, almost without meaning to, but he didn’t take it back. He, unlike Saracen, _couldn’t_ take things back.

“No,” Saracen admitted. “None of you ever told me that story, in any timeline.”

“Ghastly’s the only one who knows it. We don’t talk about it. Ever. It was after Skulduggery was killed, but before he came back. Hopeless and I knew each other through Meritorious and Corrival.” Well enough that Erskine had occasionally dropped by the estate to visit, even when he wasn’t just following after Corrival for lack of anything better to do. Most of what he knew about how to act and dress like a nobleman came from those visits. “The situation was desperate enough that Meritorious was actually sending him out into the field alone to spy on Mevolent’s people. That meant getting close enough to listen in.”

“I remember,” said Saracen. Hopeless had done it a lot during the war. It was just that he always had someone with him … after a point.

“I was moonlighting as a sympathiser.”

“I didn’t know that,” Saracen said, sounding surprised. Erskine shrugged.

“Back then, it was the only way we could get information without fully outing Hopeless to everyone—not that I knew about that at the time. And not many people could pull it off. They either couldn’t bluff or they were too well-known for being on Meritorious’s side. Not many people then knew Corrival had introduced me to the magical community, and I didn’t really have his passion for his cause—not enough to stick around while he was pushing it. Frankly, most of my time before the war was spent slumming.”

“So what happened?”

Erskine slowed enough that Saracen could keep pace without running himself ragged, and he could sense Saracen’s interested sidelong glances. He didn’t meet them. He just looked forward, striding down the aisles. “Hopeless was there. They hadn’t figured me out, yet, but they would have, soon. In the middle of the night, in the middle of an enemy camp, with Mevolent barely a hundred feet away, Hopeless came in and got me, and smuggled me out without a single person knowing.”

Saracen said nothing.

“I actually wondered if he was human that night,” Erskine continued. “The way he knew where and when to walk, if someone was nearby, what they were thinking. He pretended to be the Baron or Serpine at least half a dozen times, ordering people this way and that without ever showing his face. By the time we actually left, half the camp was in an uproar over conflicting or changing orders.”

“I didn’t know he’d done that.”

“He told me later he’d been sent to steal something from Mevolent.”

“What was it?”

“A book,” said Erskine, slowing as they came back to the entrance of the Repository and coming to a halt as near to the Book of Names as was possible to get without activating the spell. Erskine looked at it, felt the tightness in his face. “ _This_ book. And it turned out he hadn’t been sent at all. Meritorious read him the riot act when we got back to camp, and Hopeless just stood there and took it. When Meritorious finally stopped shouting, he asked what Hopeless had been thinking. That’s when Hopeless told him about the Book.”

Erskine turned to Saracen, feeling slow as if he was standing in a gravity well. “Do you know what he’d _actually_ gone there to steal?”

Wordless and pale, Saracen shook his head.

“A different book. _The Key of Solomon_. Have you heard of it?”

“It’s some Christian grimoire.”

Erskine laughed. “Don’t let your father hear you call it that. It turns out it’s full of summoning rituals—including ones to summon the Faceless Ones. Obviously they never actually worked, or else we’d never have won the war. But Hopeless stole it from Mevolent just because he objected to Mevolent using a book supposedly written by a Christian saint as a sacred object of the Faceless Ones. He walked into Mevolent’s camp, _into his tent_ , and walked out again with Mevolent’s most prized possession without Mevolent knowing who had done it or how. And then when Hopeless got back he avoided getting into trouble by manipulating Meritorious into thinking he’d gone in to get the Book of Names all along.”

Erskine turned away from the Book and walked toward the doors of the Repository. Saracen didn’t follow for a moment, but then Erskine heard him jog after.

“What happened to _The Key of Solomon_?”

“Hopeless burned it,” Erskine answered shortly, “the moment we were far enough away from Mevolent’s camp. That’s when he told me why he’d been in the area. I told Ghastly later, because I was worried Hopeless was getting reckless.”

“And if Mevolent had the Book of Names, why didn’t he use it?”

“Hopeless said he didn’t know what he had. It was part of a cache Mevolent had just raided while looking for other rituals, trying to piece together one that would succeed in summoning the Faceless Ones. Hopeless tried to destroy it, but he couldn’t. He hid it instead, before we reached the camp, so not even Meritorious could be tempted to use it. A bunch of mortal archaeologists unearthed it about seventy years ago, and the Council recovered it after that.”

“You know this doesn’t mean he’s manipulating you, Erskine.”

Erskine looked at him. He still felt angry, but it was an exhausted anger, an anger without enough energy to sustain itself except to fade into bitter embers. “Hopeless doesn’t go around killing people for a cause or for fun,” he said, “but he doesn’t _need to_. How often have we done what he said, without question, because he’s the one who said it? How often have we let something slide because he said we should?” He laughed bitterly. “‘Strike from the shadows, fade into darkness’—sound familiar? Hopeless controls people without needing the threat of death, just like we’ve always done. From the shadows. How long do you think it’ll be before he falls too? Ghastly and I had to tie him to a chair to stop him from walking out again, back into Mevolent’s camp, because he was losing himself. And when he does finally fall, how do you think someone like him is possibly going to come back?”

Saracen stopped short in the Repository doorway. “You’re wrong,” he said. “You’re wrong, and if you stop and think it over objectively, _just like we’ve always done_ , you’d see that.”

Erskine didn’t answer. He just kept walking, and he didn’t look back.

 

_“You’re not Vile. That’s just … stupid. I mean, Vile killed Ghastly’s mother. Skulduggery? Come on, Skulduggery, tell me I’m wrong.”_

_“You’re wrong. I don’t want it back.”_

Thud. Thud. Thud-thud.

_“How did you go from a good and honourable man to a monster?”_

_“Does it matter?”_

_“Yes. Yes, it matters.”_

Thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

_“There isn’t anything else to tell. I put on the armour, I walked into the Temple and I—I became Lord Vile.”_

_“No. People don’t_ simply become _something else. There are reasons, there are causes. You told us what happened. You still haven’t explained how.”_

_“It’s not—”_

“How did you become Lord Vile _?”_

 _“I already_ was _Lord Vile!”_

Ghastly’s fists hit the punching-bag so hard he felt something crunch, but he’d already drawn back to strike again and didn’t bother to abort. He was numb. If he’d hurt himself, he couldn’t tell, and Dexter didn’t stop him. He just kept the bag from escaping, held it steady for what Ghastly was doing to it, and said nothing.

 _“After my death, I couldn’t—I couldn’t_ care _. I tried. I did. I was going through the motions. A puppet playing out a memory. I wanted revenge, I wanted answers. I knew it was wrong and I couldn’t … I couldn’t care.”_

Words ran round and round in Ghastly’s head. Words that didn’t make sense, words that did but were so horrifying that his mind shied away from them.

_“You’re not Vile. That’s just … stupid. I mean, Vile killed Ghastly’s mother.”_

_“How did you go from a good and honourable man to a monster?”_

_“I already_ was _Lord Vile!”_

The punching-bag shuddered. Something crunched, and when Ghastly tried to pull back he couldn’t.

_“Stop.”_

The word rang and Ghastly couldn’t tell if it was just in his head or not until he felt a warm hand on his wrist. He jerked, his whole body shuddering with his deep, ragged breaths and the aborted blow, but his head snapped toward the culprit. Dexter didn’t flinch. He just took Ghastly’s wrist more firmly and levered it out of the hole in the punching-bag. Leather scraped across Ghastly’s beaten knuckles, and for the first time Ghastly felt a twinge, but he didn’t react. It was barely a sting in comparison to—everything else.

He felt drained and not at once. All the heat of action had left him, but instead of leaving him clear-headed he just felt muddled. Like he was still full of soggy ashes. He didn’t resist as Dexter led him away to the benches and the shower-room. The Sanctuary gym was empty at this time of night. It was barely even used in the first place, except by Cleavers in training.

They didn’t have any gear. Ghastly hadn’t bothered to bind his knuckles, and now they were bloodied and swollen. He was going to regret that later on.

Dexter sat him down and got the first-aid kit, and took his wrist. Ghastly should have been angry at him. There wasn’t any room in him for it. There wasn’t any room in him for anything but the buzzing adrenaline and the numbing wreckage. He slumped against the wall and stared blankly at the ground, and felt in his knuckles the echo of striking flesh and snapping bone.

_“Damn it, you fool, answer me!”_

“When I first found out,” said Dexter, “the first thing I wanted to do was tell someone.”

Ghastly flinched.

“It was right after that mission at the pass. Do you remember that one? It was an impossible situation. We needed to get the bulk of the army across to Ukraine, and the quickest way was over the Carpathians. Skulduggery had just come back and that was wonderful, but we knew if Vile was there at the pass, it was all over. Except that Skulduggery insisted we should try it anyway, and Descry backed him up. So we took the chance. And Vile never turned up.”

If Ghastly didn’t focus on any of the words, he found he could let them flow by him like ocean-water. Liquid, but sharp enough to prod at his attention. It took a lot of effort to do that, though, so much effort that Ghastly couldn’t move or even speak, or do anything but let the words come.

“We barely slept for three days after that,” Dexter continued, dabbing antiseptic on Ghastly’s cuts and breaking the ice-pack to put over his knuckles. “Securing the pass was bad enough, but then having to fight Mevolent’s army right after—we were all exhausted. We finally got Descry to crash two days after the battle ended. You said you hadn’t seen him sleep so badly since the war’s start. Do you remember that?”

He took Ghastly’s other wrist to clean the cuts and crush another ice-pack. “I was on watch. He was actually talking in his sleep. I’ve never seen him do that before, or since. Eventually I decided to wake him up, only he wouldn’t wake up. He was _responding_ to me, but he wouldn’t wake up. And he said things.”

Not listening wasn’t working. Ghastly’s whole body felt tight, on the edge of a precipice, but paralysed as well. He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. He had no idea whether he wanted to. He just sat there, unmoving in the prison of his body, and heard every word Dexter said.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” Dexter said, and it was as if he was barely there himself. “It was Skulduggery. Descry hasn’t been able to read Skulduggery since before his death. There’s no way he could have known for _sure_ , not like he knew everyone else. But he was never able to read Vile, either. And Vile wasn’t at the pass, but Skulduggery was. Descry knew Skulduggery was an ambidextrous sorcerer. Vile only appeared after Skulduggery left the first time. We never saw his face. There were just too many coincidences.”

He wrapped the ice-pack around Ghastly’s knuckles and moved to his other fist. “I lost count of the number of times I stood in front of Corrival’s tent. I wanted to tell him. I told myself it was my _duty_ to tell him. But I never could. Skulduggery was back. He was laughing. Do you remember the first day we made him laugh?”

Ghastly remembered. Not what Dexter and Rover had said. It had been much the same stupid things they’d been saying for decades. The flirting, the teasing, the fake affront. But Skulduggery had laughed.

“I’d never heard him laugh before. Not like that. He could sound amused, but he never _laughed_ , until he came back. And do you remember how we found him? Pretending to be Rue, in some backwater tavern in Cork? We’d been working double-time trying to keep Rue’s secret, and the next thing we knew some arrogant fool was stealing him away.”

Dexter laughed, softly and like an echo of mirth. “The festival was right after that. When we all dressed up—even Skulduggery. He’d never done that before, either. He always said you’d never see him dead in the get-ups Larrikin used to put us in. But we saw it that whole week. He was just like you and Descry used to tell us he was. Funny. Arrogant. So charming he could wear anything and still get people to take him seriously. Didn’t he lead a battle dressed in that stupid powdered wig? And you almost got yourself killed because you were so busy telling us about some story from before the war. About how he snuck into a mortal courtroom to find evidence of a sorcerer manipulating the justice system, and tried on one of the periwigs, and got mistaken for one of the junior judges. How when you got his message that he needed you in the courtroom, you expected to see him on the stand, not in the judge’s seat.”

Ghastly shuddered. It took him a moment to realise it was because he was sobbing, but his chest was so tight that the sobs came out in jerky chokes. He felt like he was being ripped in two. He bent inward just like Larrikin had done in Hopeless’s office, and Dexter shifted in his seat, and then Ghastly had Dexter’s shoulder under his face and Dexter’s hand on the back of his neck.

It was as if he’d just lost Skulduggery all over again, except worse. Skulduggery _and_ his mother, at once, because Skulduggery had been an idiot, because Skulduggery—

 _“I already_ was _Lord Vile!”_

—Skulduggery had murdered his mother, and Ghastly didn’t know how he was meant to get past that. He couldn’t _possibly_ get past that. One of the people he loved most in the world had murdered one of the other people he loved most in the world. How could anyone get past that?

There were other things at stake. Ghastly knew that, and he couldn’t care. Right now nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , was bigger than that insurmountable fact. It blocked everything else out except that wrenching grief and hurt, the one that found an outlet the only way it could—hard, and bitter. If Skulduggery had been in front of him, Ghastly would have pulverised him into the ground, but he wasn’t, because Larrikin had stepped in. That stupid, stupid idiot. Ghastly could have killed him in a red-hazed fury, and for what?

For the sake of a man who was already dead, who had killed the woman who had taken him in when his own family had cast him out?

Ghastly couldn’t be sure how long it was before the tears wound down, but eventually he became aware that Anton was in the room, sitting quietly by his other side with a hand on his back. Ghastly didn’t move, or speak. He wasn’t sure he could. The emotion had stormed out of him again, in a different fashion, but there was still a hot wrenching twist in his gut that Ghastly couldn’t imagine ever going away. Every time he focussed too hard on it, that twist would rise up through his limbs and head and threaten to paralyse him. It was the most he could do to keep it down, in his belly, where it seethed.

“Larrikin will be fine,” Anton said. His voice was low enough that it wasn’t a surprise—quite. But the words didn’t make anything in Ghastly’s body rest easy. “Bliss and the Cleavers have already departed for Clearwater. We rang Tanith Low. She’ll join us there. We have a bit of time to spare before we have to join the Cleavers, if we use the Hotel to get there.”

“You’re going to have to repair the wards after this,” Dexter said. “They weren’t made to be forced off the rails so often in such a short period of time.”

“It isn’t the first time.”

“And you’re going to have a lot of pissed-off customers for missing your schedule.”

“They can live with it.”

“We can always put a stuffed Grotesquery head on your wall. At least it would be a talking point.”

None of them laughed, but Ghastly exhaled shakily and stood. His knuckles were properly bound, and the first-aid kit was packed. Ghastly looked at it and then away, and forced himself to walk to the door. They had a world to save. It was just that Ghastly wondered about the point of living in it afterwards.


	20. Those about to die ...

The earth’s shadow was starting to creep across the face of the full moon. The convoy stopped on a quiet road. Engines were cut and headlights snapped off. The Cleavers jumped from the back of the trucks, making not one sound as they lined up and waited for instructions. Mr Bliss got out of one’s cab and Tanith swung her leg off her bike, taking off her helmet.

She took a deep breath and then blew it out. Her body was already aching from the fight earlier that evening, but General Deuce—Corrival, she corrected herself—had told her to go take a soothing bath and a quick nap just in case she was needed. So she had, and she felt a lot better. Well enough to take on a god.

Well, almost.

The Midnight Hotel grew out of the ground like an oak-tree in fast-forward. One by one the Dead Men came out, grim and silent. Wait, Tanith realised. Not all of them. Elder Hopeless wasn’t there, which was understandable, but neither were Rover or Skulduggery. The remaining five stood in front of the Hotel without a word or a smirk in sight.

A chill ran down Tanith’s spine and her mouth dried up. Ghastly had obviously been in a fight; his knuckles were bound and his face was set in a fragile sort of manner that made his scars look deeper. The rest of them looked forbidding in a way Tanith had started to think was just a myth from all the stories about them. Even last year, when Hopeless had been kidnapped, most of them had managed a sort of dark humour. Now none of them looked even remotely close to having a joke ready.

Mr Bliss didn’t seem surprised. He surveyed them and turned to the Cleavers. Before he could speak the Hotel’s door banged open one last time and Larrikin stumbled out, making a sound like a whining dog.

The others whirled around, looking shocked and angry, and—strangely—guilty. Tanith could only stare. Larrikin looked like he’d been pounded and come out the worse. Or at least, his face did. Both eyes were blacked, his nose and jaw were tightly bound, and his face was mottled with semi-healed bruises.

“You’re not meant to be here!” Saracen exclaimed, shoving past Ghastly, who turned away. Dexter got there first, and took Larrikin’s arm.

“He’s right,” said Shudder. “You’re meant to be back in the Sanctuary with Professor Grouse. Your treatment should have taken another hour at least.”

Larrikin rolled his eyes and grunted, which was the most he could manage with an obviously broken jaw. ‘My face is broken, not my limbs,’ he signed. ‘I can fight. You lot should be pleased. Now you can’t have me chattering on all through the battle. It’s going to be boring.’

“What _happened_?” Tanith blurted out. Every eye turned to her, and she almost stepped back.

“There was a fight at the Sanctuary,” Erskine said shortly, and turned back to Rover. “Larrikin, don’t be an idiot. Get back inside and stay there. We can handle this without you.”

Larrikin crossed his arms and snapped his fingers at Saracen.

“What?”

‘That thing you always say?’ Larrikin prompted with an extra roll of his hand. ‘About never splitting up?’

“We’re _already_ split up,” Erskine snapped. Ghastly flinched, and there was an abrupt, sharp silence. The Dead Men looked in all directions.

“Oh, God,” Tanith whispered. “Who died?”

Ghastly turned and started walking north, toward the hospital. The Dead Men didn’t seem inclined to stop him, and for a moment Tanith thought he was just going to dive right into the battle without even discussing how they were meant to take on the Grotesquery and the Baron at once.

“Well. We _are_ a sorry lot, aren’t we?” said a sardonic voice from the shadows, and out stepped a man in a black-on-black suit, bearing a black and silver cane.

 

Dexter watched Ghastly turn away from them and felt like crying. The tailor hadn’t said a word since they’d left Hopeless’s office, but that wasn’t what worried Dexter. What worried Dexter was the set of Ghastly’s shoulders as he marched toward the fight. Slumped. As if he didn’t really care what happened after this, because his world was already broken.

There was no way this could be better than the alternative—than _not_ telling them. It wasn’t in Dexter’s nature to doubt, but Hopeless could, occasionally, be wrong. And his mistakes tended to be bigger than most people’s. What if this was one of those times?

Then the necromancer stepped out of the shadows and everyone leapt to attention. The Cleavers’ scythes cleared their scabbards with a scrape, and Tanith’s sword appeared in her hand. The Dead Men tensed.

The necromancer only laughed. “Oh, please. There’s no need for that for little old me.”

“For _you_ we can make exceptions,” Erskine growled. Dexter recognised the man too. He’d been the one to usher Serpine into the Temple, all those years ago in America. Wreath, Dexter thought his name was.

Ghastly stopped short and looked at him, and his expression, whatever it was, made Wreath’s smile fade.

“Did you know?” Ghastly asked in such a low voice that it made a shiver run down Dexter’s spine. His head snapped around, but Erskine and Rover had already raised their hands and raised a bubble of sound-dampening vacuum around them, cutting off Bliss’s first word.

Wreath looked blank. “Know what?”

Ghastly’s hands shot out and twisted in his shirt, and he slammed Wreath against the tree he’d been waiting under. “ _Did you know_?!”

Wreath’s hand came up to grip Ghastly’s wrist. “Ghastly—” he started, and then coughed and took a breath. Dexter moved closer, although he wasn’t sure who to defend. He’d definitely heard a creak when Wreath hit that tree. A second breath, and then Wreath gathered himself, which was impressive given Ghastly’s current state of mind. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t,” Ghastly choked out, and his voice shook. “You knew him! You knew him and then you hated him for _years_ and never even bothered to explain why! You had to have known!”

Dexter’s heart skipped a beat.

“Wait.” Erskine moved forward, glancing between Ghastly and the necromancer, and his expression held a brittle hardness. “He knows Skulduggery? _This_ necromancer? How? Why? Skulduggery didn’t know him when we met him, and he already hated necromancers by then.”

“Skulduggery didn’t feel the motivation to remember me before then,” Wreath said. Dexter thought there might have been some bitterness in his tone.

“I wonder why,” Erskine said coldly.

Wreath glanced at him, then eyed Ghastly warily, then shifted his gaze to each of the Dead Men in turn as they clustered around them. “Where _is_ Skulduggery?” he asked. “I’m surprised he hasn’t put himself in the forefront of saving the world—yet again. He’s always had something of a hero complex.”

“What do you want, Wreath?” Dexter asked, and his voice came out exhausted even to himself.

“I’m here to offer my help.”

There was a disbelieving pause. Not even Saracen seemed to have expected that. “You,” he repeated, crossing his arms. “Came to help. You’re a _necromancer_.”

“And in case you didn’t notice, Baron Vengeous is using a necromancer’s item,” Wreath said—rather sourly, Dexter thought. “Believe me, this is the last place on Earth I’d like to be. The High Priest disagrees. He sent me to help, in exchange for Vile’s armour returning to the Temple after the Baron has been defeated.”

Another pause. Then Anton asked bluntly, “Why you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Wreath blinked at him.

“Why _you_?” Anton repeated. “If the Temple were truly serious about receiving Vile’s armour and stopping the Baron, why did they send only one necromancer to aid us?”

Wreath’s face hardened. “That is irrelevant.”

“I don’t think so.” Erskine smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile. “They didn’t send just anyone, they sent _you._ The man in charge of Serpine’mnns arrival at the Temple. The man who just _happened_ to know Skulduggery.”

Wreath didn’t have any idea what they were talking about, Dexter realised abruptly. His expression was still hard, but there was genuine puzzlement in his eyes. Wreath really had no idea—but that didn’t mean no one else in the Temple didn’t. Because, of course, they did. The High Priest _did_.

“What does Skulduggery have to do with this?” Wreath asked.

“Skulduggery is Lord Vile,” Ghastly said. His whole body stiffened and his fists clenched, and a tremor ran through him, as if he couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

Wreath stared. He took a breath and Dexter thought he was going to deny it, but then his head dropped back against the tree and he _laughed_. He laughed and laughed, bitter and with an ironically resigned edge which thankfully didn’t quite approach hysteria. Then he caught his breath and laughed again, bowing into Ghastly’s grip as the only thing to hold him up.

“You didn’t know,” said Ghastly, his voice now deadened.

Wreath caught his breath again, and shook his head. “I didn’t know. Of _course_ he is. Who else?”

Slowly Ghastly released him and stepped back, and Wreath propped himself up on the tree. He straightened, pulling his clothes right, and when he stepped out into the porch-light cast by the Hotel Dexter could see how pale he was in spite of his cavalier response. “The High Priest sent me,” he said, “because in over a dozen training rounds to assess Lord Vile’s strength, I was the only one to survive.” He smiled and it looked tight on his face. “I always did wonder why. I’m not that powerful.”

“You seriously think it has something to do with your past history?” Erskine demanded, and snorted.

“I don’t know,” Wreath said evenly. “I wouldn’t have thought so; Skulduggery forgot I even existed after we parted ways, as you so insightfully observed. But there isn’t any other logical reason for it.”

“You were sent because you fought Vile directly,” said Anton solidly, “so you know how to counter his magic. The Baron is not Lord Vile. You won’t need as much power to beat him.”

“High Priest Tenebrae agreed,” said Wreath, but judging by the colour of his face, he hadn’t been lying when he said he would rather have been anywhere else.

Rover tugged on his sleeve and Wreath frowned down at his hand and brushed him away. Rover signed, ‘How did you know we were here?’

Wreath hesitated as Anton repeated the question, but at last he said, “The Grand Mage told me.”

“Another _affiliation_?” Erskine said coldly. Wreath was unmoved.

“Yes.”

“She already asked you,” Dexter said, crossing his arms. “And you said no. Because you know each other well, somehow. I’m betting you were her student. You’re the one she asked for help to free Tome last year, aren’t you? But of course she asked you personally, not through the Temple, and it looks bad for you to be seen with the Grand Mage without their permission. The question is whether you told the High Priest about the Baron yourself, or if he found out and blackmailed you with it.”

Wreath’s expression didn’t flicker. “That’s for you to decide on your own. Do you accept my terms or not?”

“Not,” Dexter cut in before anyone else could answer, and he felt their surprised gazes.

“Um.” Saracen raised his hand. “Dexter, if he knows how to counter Vile’s magic, then we could use him. He _is_ a necromancer. He’d know more about how to fight the Baron in the armour than we do.”

“But he wants to take the armour back to the Temple,” said Dexter.

“Not exactly a good idea, I’ll grant you,” Saracen admitted. “But—”

“Dexter,” Erskine said, watching him with a hard gaze. “What _else_ do you know which none of us do?”

“I haven’t always known,” Dexter said grimly. “I only found out last year.”

“Found out what?” Anton asked before Erskine. From his expression, he wouldn’t have said anything nice.

“Tenebrae knew Skulduggery was Vile from the very beginning,” said Dexter, and everyone stiffened. Everyone except Saracen, who rubbed his face. “He saw him use necromancy in some battle before he died and thought Skulduggery could be some kind of saviour. When Serpine made them teach him the Red Hand, Tenebrae was the one who did it, and made sure it wouldn’t work on Skulduggery.”

“He’s the reason Skulduggery’s a skeleton?” Anton repeated quietly, and he almost sounded shocked.

“How could you _possibly_ know this?” Wreath demanded.

Dexter gave him a look. “That’s Dead Men business. But we know it’s the truth. Tenebrae orchestrated all this. He’s responsible for Skulduggery’s coming back the way he did—he’s responsible for Lord Vile. I’d wager that he was the one who was arranging the match-ups for Vile’s ‘training sessions’. Am I right?”

Judging by Wreath’s ashen face, he was.

“And this makes me wonder,” Dexter continued, “exactly what kind of deal Tenebrae had with Serpine that Tenebrae could convince the whole Temple to save Serpine from Skulduggery.”

Now Wreath just looked ill.

“So the answer is no,” Dexter said evenly. “We’re not going to let Tenebrae get the armour. Not after what he’s done. If that means you’re not going to help us, fine. We’re Dead Men. We’ll take care of our own.”

He turned around and walked away. After a moment the mist in the air that marked the thin barrier of vacuum faded, and he heard the others’ footsteps following. Bliss turned around from giving the Cleavers their orders. Tanith looked up from oiling her sword.

“Wreath offered help in exchange for something we can’t give,” Dexter told them. “We’re on our own.”

“Very well,” said Bliss. “Our first intent should be to release China. She will be one extra ally in the battle. We should remove Dusk and Billy-Ray Sanguine from the fight as quickly as possible as well. Then we can focus upon Vengeous and the Grotesquery.”

“Vengeous first,” said Dex. “He’ll stay close to the Grotesquery, but it’ll be easier if we can get him away.”

“That’s a big ‘if’,” Saracen said. “I’ll do—”

“No, I’ll do it,” Dexter interrupted. “I’m the one who’d make him angriest. Maybe angry enough to be willing to leave the Grotesquery for a few minutes, if he thinks it doesn’t need him to revive.”

“He thinks I’m the one who humiliated him,” Saracen objected.

“So I’ll tell him who really did,” Dexter said. “Besides, you’re the one with the best chance of freeing China with any speed, or counteracting Sanguine’s burrowing. And we need someone to find the Edgleys.”

“You can’t take on the Baron alone,” Anton said.

“But we’re going to need _you_ to fight the Grotesquery,” Erskine pointed out. “I’ll take Dusk. If I can finish him fast, I can help Dex with the Baron or Saracen find the Edgleys.”

“You’ll need to fight the Baron in open ground,” said Wreath from behind them all.

Dexter almost jumped as he turned, frowning. “I thought you left?”

“The return of the armour was Tenebrae’s term,” Wreath said, and though he was still pale and gripping his cane tightly, his voice was even. “Not mine. I’ll help you fight the Baron without the right to the armour.”

“Your funeral,” said Erskine with a shrug, crossing his arms and turning back to Bliss.

“We will attack the Grotesquery in two waves,” Bliss said. “The first wave will consist of Tanith Low, Anton Shudder, Ghastly Bespoke, Rover Larrikin and myself, as well as China Sorrows if Rue should succeed in freeing her. The second wave will be you Cleavers. If Dexter Vex, Erskine Ravel and Cleric Wreath are able to join us after the Baron is defeated, they will do so.”

“Optimistic, isn’t he?” Dexter heard Wreath mutter, and he almost grinned out of instinct.

Bliss gestured and the Cleavers divided into groups. Dexter turned around and was about to ask Hopeless where his group should start before realising he couldn’t. There was an awkward moment of silence while the Dead Men looked at each other. Then Ghastly turned around and strode into the shadows, and the rest of his team trailed after, quickly followed by Saracen and Erskine.

Then Dexter was left standing alone with only a necromancer to guard his back.


	21. Facing Vengeous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a description of Dexter's magic which contradicts how it was described in 'The Dead Men', chapter five. Consider the description in this chapter to be current, since it more accurately reflects canon; 'The Dead Men' has been updated accordingly.

They didn’t end up having to fight Sanguine. They saw him at the hospital’s entrance, hanging up the phone and smirking back toward the courtyard, and then he sank into the ground and was gone. Judging by his final comment just before he went, he didn’t intend to come back.

Dexter watched Saracen and Erskine let him go, and then slide through the hospital’s doors to look for Dusk and the Edgleys. Then he turned to Wreath. “You said to fight the Baron on open ground?”

“Yes,” said Wreath shortly. If Dexter wasn’t mistaken, the man was terrified. Covering it well, but the whiteness of his knuckles and the fact he was pale said a lot. Dexter didn’t think the Baron was the one frightening the man, and wondered just what had happened during that ‘training exercise’ with Lord Vile.

“Then he’s probably left the Grotesquery in the courtyard,” he said. “We want to come at them from behind the wall, on the other side. Can you shadow-walk with passengers?”

Wreath looked at him and took his shoulder, and then a swirl of cold shadows covered them. Dexter fought the urge to pull away or hold his breath, and a moment later they were in the woods beside a tall stone wall. “I presume,” said Wreath, releasing him, “that you intend to lure him into the woods?”

“It’s not exactly open,” Dexter admitted, “but it’s better than the hospital, it’s a little extra cover for us, and it’s away from the Grotesquery. And you’ll have plenty of shadows out here.”

“So will he,” Wreath muttered, but Dexter ignored him in favour of taking a breath and exhaling slowly. The others were waiting on their signal, waiting for the Baron to leave the courtyard. He flexed his hands, letting magic pool in his palms, letting it seep down his fingers, and then he lifted them and pressed them against the wall and spread them up and across and down in the shape of a door.

He knew before he was halfway that it wasn’t going to work. The magic fizzled and sparked under his skin, and with a growl Dexter let the construct fade in tiny bolts of energy not much bigger than pen-lights.

“You’re going to have to do better than that to break down this wall,” Wreath observed dryly from behind him. Dexter ignored him, took another breath, and wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers.

Then he shook his head and turned around to stride away, wheeling around a good twenty feet distant. “Move,” he ordered Wreath, and might have been gratified to see the necromancer’s eyes widen marginally before he shadow-walked out of the way. Might—if he weren’t too busy cursing internally.

He was the only energy-thrower to have taken his magic to the next logical step: using the energy he generated to create objects. The problem with that is it took a lot of focus. In the middle of a battle? Fine. He was used to death and mayhem. All that took was a certain amount of detachment. But when something happened that turned his emotions this way and that, and made detachment impossible—he was lucky if he could conjure a pen, let alone a door in a three-foot-thick wall. He hadn’t even been able to conjure said penin the decade Larrikin had been stone.

He should have known better than to try something bigger, right after the Dead Men had been torn apart. Ghastly wasn’t the only one who was thinking about what the world would be like after this night.

“You wait here while I bring the Baron out.” With a grim smile more like a baring of teeth than anything else, Dexter breathed in and raised his hands and summoned his magic to them, letting it build and build until his palms shone with searing rainbow light. It made his skin tingle wildly with heat and something close to static electricity, but wasn’t. When he felt like his fingers were about to burn off, Dexter breathed out and fired the energy beams at the wall.

The ground rocked and he only kept his feet due to sheer experience, turning his face away from the shrapnel. Before the dust had settled, before the wall had even finished collapsing in on itself, Dexter strode forward into the hole he’d made.

“Oh, Baron Vengeous,” he sang out. “I have a special delivery for you!”

“You’re insane,” he heard Wreath say behind him, but Dexter was too focussed on scanning the courtyard to pay attention. The misshapen form of the Grotesquery was in the middle, but it was the writhing silhouette to the side, near one of the buildings, that made Dexter turn. He caught a glimpse of China Sorrows, bound and slumped against a wall. Then his vision was obscured by shadows. The sight of that armour, just like in the abandoned church, made his breath catch and wild chills crawl all over his body, but Dexter reminded himself that this wasn’t Vile. Not really. It was Vengeous, not _Vile._

Not Skulduggery.

“Dexter Vex,” said the Baron, sounding amused. Cold, but amused. “I’ve been expecting one of you, though I admit this is somewhat more forthright than even I anticipated.”

“I got bored,” Dexter said with a shrug, swinging his arms idly. “I have this secret, see, and I’ve just been _dying_ to tell it to you ever since you tried to rupture my friend Saracen.”

“Rue deserved killing,” said the Baron, “and if you’re seeking to draw me off the Grotesquery so your friends can attack, this is a poor attempt.”

“Why, do you not think your god can handle a bunch of heathens?” Dexter asked.

“Hardly. I would not allow you to sully its presence with yours.”

“You’re going to have to make a difficult choice, then,” said Dexter. “See, I’m making a fool of you.”

“Really.”

“Oh, yes.” Dexter clasped his hands behind his back. “Just by talking to you, I’m making a fool of you, and everybody’s going to know it. Want to know why?”

“I have no time for this.” The Baron started to turn away, which would have been a very bad thing given that Bliss and the others were now on the opposite roof.

“It wasn’t Saracen that night, in Marseille,” Dexter said, “it was me.” Vengeous stopped, and those slitted eye-holes turned toward him. Dexter smiled at him pleasantly. “See, originally Rue wasn’t even a real person. He was just a construct we made up to fill out numbers and give us a cover. Larrikin usually played him, but we switched around a bit to give him a break. Marseille just happened to be my turn.”

“You’re lying.”

“ _Watch_ where you’re going, you ill-mannered cretin!” Dexter made his voice go up a good octave, put a nasal English accent into it, shifted his stance until he was balanced on the balls of his feet and could flap a hand at the Baron with that affected dandyism that had once been all the rage. _“_ Whatever _are_ you wearing, you distasteful bore? How dare you! Not only are you so _impudent_ and _ungraceful_ as to step in my way, you _sully_ our sight with those … _rags_.”

Dexter let the cover drop and laughed. He forced into it all the amusement he could possibly muster, and was surprised when it came out sounding genuine. “You spent decades wanting vengeance on a man who didn’t even exist for half the war, Baron. You spent decades wanting vengeance on Saracen for humiliating you, and all along, it was _me_. The joke’s on—”

Shadows whipped at him and Dexter threw himself backward, hitting the ground on his shoulders and rolling. He landed in a crouch and lifted a hand to throw a beam at Vengeous, but it went wild when he threw himself to the side to avoid the next volley of shadowy spears. He rolled, scrambled to his feet, and almost had a heart attack when something grabbed him from behind and yanked him back out of the way of a third wave. The two broken edges of the wall and a few spindly trees shot by him like he’d been fired backwards out of a cannon, and then Wreath’s shadows dropped him on a patch of heather.

“A little warning, thanks,” Dexter grumbled as he got to his feet again.

“He’s coming,” said Wreath from the darkness of the woods. Shadows boiled out of the gap in the wall, preceding and accompanying the Baron. Out here it was darker, where the moon’s light couldn’t reach. Dexter hoped that meant the Baron couldn’t see him too well. Most likely it meant he wouldn’t need to.

That was proven a moment later when the shadows over Dexter’s head tried to impale him into the heather. He dodged, channelled energy to his hand, and let off a beam toward the Baron. Its light cast rippling shadows across the ground, shadows Dexter only realised belatedly were themselves rushing toward the Baron, and faster than his energy-beam was.

The armour cast a barrier in front of Vengeous, looking oily in the bolt’s illumination. Wreath’s shadows struck it at the ground, and the whole barrier bucked upward, breaking apart into shards just as Dexter’s beam shot through them and collided with something inside.

Vengeous roared with fury and every shadow around him lashed out. Instinctively Dexter lifted his hands to summon a shield, but his magic fizzed and he cursed and dove behind a tree instead. The shadows tore right through it, so he dropped and rolled onto his back and aimed an energy-beam up at them.

The beam hit the shadows and fizzled out against their greater weight of presence, and they came down at him. Dexter rolled and kept rolling, and felt sprays of dirt strike his clothes as the shadows gouged the ground. Something gripped his ankle and yanked him along feet-first until he struck another tree. Dexter shook off the shadow and scrambled to his feet, and jumped behind the tree just as the Baron’s shadows slammed against Wreath’s barrier. There was a wash of darkness and Dexter blinked rapidly at the sudden lack of bark under his hands.

“This isn’t working,” he said into the night around him.

“Really?” Wreath said sardonically from some unspecified location. “Do tell. I seem to recall giving advice as to how best engage him, but apparently—”

“You said _open space_. You didn’t say _completely lacking any kind of cover whatsoever_.”

“You’re Dexter Vex. You were supposed to _provide_ the cover. The shadowless cover, preferably.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Dexter muttered, right before a circle of shadows swept through the forest and nearly took his head off, along with the tops of the trees. He hit the ground with a curse, and when he lifted himself it was to find a swath of forest about thirty feet circular was now only barely five feet in height. Which meant Dexter and Wreath were the tallest things in it.

The Baron’s head snapped toward him and Dexter raised his hands, his magic already fizzing in his skin. In the space of a second he felt Wreath grip his shoulder from behind and then the shadows enveloped them. Then they were behind the Baron, and Dexter released two energy-beams at his back. As if under its own power the armour swelled and when the beams punched through them there was nothing there. Before Dexter could turn to find the Baron, Wreath’s own shadows had come up again, and in a disorientatingly short moment they were once again elsewhere—further into the trees.

The Baron stood near the gap in the wall, an unmoving silhouette against the light of flames from within the courtyard behind him.

“Come out, Dexter Vex,” he said in a low voice. “Come out, and I will kill you quickly in sacrifice to my god.”

Dexter would have liked to answer. He thought it was wiser to remain silent instead. That, and he almost had a heart attack when Wreath gripped his arm again.

“Gather your magic,” he said grimly, “as though you’re about to break the wall. But don’t release it until we’ve gotten close, and use it one hand at a time.”

“This is going to be fun.” Dexter clenched his hands and then let them fall loose, and did what Wreath said. His palms crackled with energy, enough that he started to feel the heat, but he kept it leashed and let it build. Wreath’s shadows swept up and Dexter’s light made some of them dissolve, but the rest took them and deposited them beside the Baron. Dexter raised one hand and fired his energy-beam the moment he laid eyes on Vengeous, but like before the shadows drew up and his beams cut through nothing.

Wreath shadow-walked them away. Dexter didn’t know how he did it, but they appeared next to the Baron just as the Baron himself landed on solid ground. Dexter’s hand jerked up and he fired before he had a chance to think, before the Baron had a chance to realise they were there.

The shadows swelled, but the beam ripped through them and struck Vengeous, and threw him back up against the wall with such force that parts of it crumbled. For a moment the armour was lit up as an oily black silhouette framed in rainbow light, without any streamers or accessories at all. Wreath swept his cane across them, and a wave of shadows shot out and slammed into Vengeous again. Dexter took advantage and charged another beam, not waiting for it to be as powerful as the last before firing.

There was a whisper, loud like a flock of bats had swept over his head, and the shadows surged. Dexter thought it was Wreath, right up until Wreath screamed and something exploded beside them, throwing Dexter across the clearing. He hit the ground and rolled, his skin crawling and head pounding with the odd sensation as if his ears should be ringing, even though they weren’t.

It wasn’t until he turned his head that Dexter felt the throb in one side of his face, and realised he’d caught some shrapnel. That explained the sudden headache. He didn’t know what it was from until he glanced toward movement and saw Wreath push himself to his knees, his cane-hand clutched to his chest and sleeve so much ribbon. He was also no longer holding a cane. That was because the cane wasn’t much more than debris in the grass—and Dexter’s face, and Wreath’s arm.

Shadows whispered across the ground around Wreath, and the Baron strode forward to stop in front of him. Wreath looked up at him and then abruptly lunged. Dexter saw his bloodied hand slap against the armour’s breastplate, and thought he saw the man’s lips move, but what Wreath hoped to achieve Dexter had no idea. Vengeous’s hand shot out and ropes of shadow flung Wreath backwards. Dexter saw him hit the ground hard, but he was struggling to his own feet, and Vengeous was turning toward _him_ now.

“It’s over,” said the Baron. “I admit, I didn’t expect you to actually bring a necromancer to this fight, but even he’s no match for the power I have now.” He gazed speculatively down at his armoured hands. “I fought alongside Vile during the war.” Dexter’s stomach jolted, and he saw Wreath freeze. “I never liked him. He was … different. He had secrets. But I knew he was powerful. I just never realised _how_ powerful. Nothing compared to the Faceless Ones, obviously, but still … potent. And now that power is mine.”

“Tell me,” said Wreath, a little hoarsely. He was still on his knees. Judging by the trickle of blood down his hairline, he’d hit his head somewhere. “What do you think happened to Vile?”

Dexter froze. He hadn’t frozen in battle since he was young and ignorant and new to the fight, but he froze now, because he hadn’t even considered that Wreath might do _this_.

Vengeous looked at Wreath. “Of course,” he said. “You necromancers once venerated him, didn’t you? And yet, to the eyes of the world, he simply disappeared. Do you want to know the truth, Cleric?”

“Yes,” Wreath said. “I want to know the truth.”

“He was killed by a Faceless One,” said Vengeous, and Dexter stared. Vengeous caught his look and laughed. “Oh, yes. How do you think I know where his limits lie? From where do you think the Grotesquery came? Our portal was unstable. We damaged our god, and it was justly wrathful. But after the battle was over, it was the Grotesquery that remained—and Vile nowhere to be seen. Nor was he seen again.”

It took Dexter a moment to realise that the sensation of being ripped in two was his heart pounding. Skulduggery killed a Faceless One. Skulduggery killed a _god_. Had that made him turn back? Killing a _god_?

“I presumed at first that his armour had been scattered,” Vengeous was saying to Wreath. “But then I realised it would never have allowed itself to remain apart from itself. It was far too powerful for that. It would have summoned its components to itself. I merely tracked it through the same basic area in which we summoned the portal. And finally, I found it. Lord Vile’s armour.”

Wreath gazed at Vengeous with a combination of disgust and pity and triumph. “You’re a fool,” he said at last, and now he sounded almost incredulous. “You’re comparing yourself to _Vile_?”

If the Baron had possessed any amiability at all, it vanished. Whatever fear Wreath had felt before the battle also seemed to have gone the way of insanity. Not, Dexter admitted, that he could talk. “I wield his power,” said the Baron. “I wonder, were you there the day he broke out of the Temple, Necromancer?”

“No,” Wreath said, “but I didn’t have to be. I already knew his power, and you don’t have a tenth of it.” He smiled then, and it was a grim smile that made his dark eyes glitter. “You’re an imposter, Baron. You’re an imposter who thinks he understands the power of necromancy, and you understand nothing.”

Vengeous didn’t answer, but his shadows roared and whipped at Wreath. Wreath clapped his hands together like he was trying to catch a fly, and the armour exploded with spikes from every joint. For a heartbeat there was stillness. Then the shadows dissolved and there was simply that oily black armour, standing there motionless in a swath of beheaded trees. Dexter watched it, his heart pounding, until he was sure the Baron was dead. Then he got properly to his feet and staggered in Wreath’s direction.

“How did you do that?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see shadows lashing at them.

Wreath was bent over, one arm bracing himself on the ground and the other trembling, held awkwardly in the air. He let out a breathless laugh. Whatever he’d done had taken a lot out of him. “Necromancers don’t pick up their items from the dime-store, Vex. They’re forged.” He held out his shaking arm, and Dexter watched blood drip off his fingers to the grass. “One of the crucial components is the blood of the owner.”

Dexter’s ears were still ringing, but combined with the memory of seeing Wreath slap his bloody hand to the armour’s breastplate, he managed to understand that much. “But when Skulduggery had the armour forged, he had no blood to give it. Is that why the Baron could use it without permission?”

“One of the reasons,” Wreath said, sounding tired. “And, of course, I imagine he made very sure not to give it any of his blood in turn—never dreaming that doing so would have strengthened his connection to it.”

Dexter glanced behind him again. The armour was still, but he could hear the battle raging inside the courtyard behind it. “Tell it to attack the Grotesquery,” he said, numbly aware of the irony of that order. “The others need help.”

“I can’t,” said Wreath. “It’s not alive. It’s not a Cleaver. I can’t _give it orders_. I can only control it, and that means I’ll have to _wear_ it, and I’m not that stupid.”

“A necromancer wise enough to reject power? That’s a first. Can you fight?” Wreath lifted his head to give him an incredulous look. Dexter rolled his eyes and pulled Wreath’s arm over his shoulders, and heaved him to his feet. “Well, at least you can drag people out of the battle with your one remaining arm.”

“Your faith in me is inspiring, Vex.”

Together, they staggered toward the hole in the wall.


	22. The Grotesquery

When Dexter and Wreath made it to the courtyard, the only Cleavers in sight were ones on the ground. The first thing Dexter saw was Erskine hitting dirt hard, thrusting down with his hands and bouncing back up as if he’d hit a trampoline. The bounce was high enough that he flipped over Dusk’s head, but the vampire was already there as he landed. So was an Infected. So was Saracen. He swung a shovel and the Infected went down, while Erskine traded blows with Dusk. Another Infected attacked Saracen from behind.

Dexter muttered a curse, halting in the cover of the wall. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be more Infected inside the hospital. Of course, the Baron would know better than to take chances with the Dead Men on the case. He wouldn’t assume they wouldn’t find him, and he knew first-hand how many people Anton’s gist alone could kill.

The others were taking on the Grotesquery, in-between being interrupted by stray Infected. Anton’s movements weren’t as smooth as they should have been, which meant he’d already used his gist again, and Tanith’s hitched stride indicated some injury or another from earlier in the evening had made itself known. Larrikin was playing support more than an active role against the Grotesquery, but it was Ghastly and Bliss who were really taking the fight to it. At least they were all still alive.

“I don’t suppose you can do anything about those Infected?” Dexter asked.

“I’m a necromancer, not a vampire slayer,” Wreath grumbled, shaking Dexter off and finding his own feet while stepping carefully over the bodies on the grass. “There’s only a handful of them left, anyway.”

Which was true, because Anton had just taken down the last in the vicinity of the Grotesquery, but in the meantime the courtyard was the sight of a massacre.

China was still bound, slumped against the wall, but at a closer glance Dexter saw the way she watched the battle under cover of her hair, the slight shift of her hands as she tested the manacles’ weaknesses. “New plan,” he said, charging energy in his palms. “Go free China. I’ll help the others.”

“So long as you don’t fall over first.”

“I’m blaming you for that. You necromancers should make your items anti-explosive.”

“You shouldn’t have put your head in the way.”

He could almost understand why Skulduggery had been friends with Wreath, Dexter mused. He lifted a hand and aimed a blast of energy at the Grotesquery during a lull. It hit and the Grotesquery shot back, skidding along the ground, but then it dug in its heels and halted. Dexter took comfort from the fact that the way it straightened up was ponderous. Then Bliss was there and swung a punch, and Ghastly was there too, and Dex didn’t see whose punch actually connected because both of them got flung back. The Grotesquery didn’t press the advantage; it stood there, motionless, as if gathering itself.

Wreath was making his way toward China with all the speed he could muster. Larrikin gave a little wave toward Dexter. Dexter gave a little wave back and moved closer, his fingers held loosely around another bank of energy in his palm. He fired it off toward the Grotesquery before it decided to start moving again, but it teleported, and he flung himself backward as it appeared in front of him.

A bolt of fire collided with its back, but it shook the flames off. Dexter rolled as its fist hit the ground where he’d been, leaving a shallow crater. He staggered to his feet but his head swam, and he felt something unseen shove him aside and let it. The Grotesquery’s fist swung through air. He felt the ripples as it passed.

Bliss got there, ducking under the blow and striking its legs to make it fall. It kicked him away but fell and hit the ground. It rolled to its feet, but Ghastly was standing over it, bringing his fists down on its back. It lifted one hand and caught his, and lifted the other to impale him with the stinger on its wrist. Tanith appeared, parrying the stinger with her sword, and Anton was behind it, thrusting his short-sword at its back.

Dexter rolled onto his hands and knees and breathed through the ringing in his ears. Larrikin arrived by his side, helping him up with a noise that sounded like a cross between pained and reprimanding.

“Hello to you too,” Dexter muttered, and swallowed hard several times to avoid his stomach from coming up. Rover’s fingers clicked in front of his face, and then signed.

‘You have blood all down your face.’

“Wreath’s cane exploded in it.”

‘So now you’ve disposed of your opponent, you decided you’re in good enough shape to come after ours?’

“Look who’s talking, raccoon-face,” Dexter answered, a little weakly, but used Rover’s support to get back to his feet. He looked up in time to see Tanith flung across the courtyard. Rover’s hand snapped up and she slowed before she hit the ground, but the blow was enough to rattle her.

There came a sound like pattering rainfall, and when Dexter looked back at the Grotesquery he saw China Sorrows inside its guard, tapping a sigil on the back of her hand that made her fist shimmer as she struck it. It staggered back and teleported away, just a few feet. One arm unravelled and lashed out toward her, but the sigils glowing through her tattered trousers pulsed and she dodged, faster than was possible without the benefit of magic. For a few moments she and Ghastly took the Grotesquery on, letting the others regroup. Anton staggered to his feet. Bliss strode out of the darkness, his step a little unsteady.

“Vex,” said Bliss, “are you fit to fight?”

Dexter flexed his hands, channelling magic to them. He couldn’t fight close-quarters, and his whole head was throbbing, but he could aim and fire. The only problem was that his vision was a touch blurry, but then Rover wrapped a strip from his shirt around his forehead and Dexter realised the blurriness was just blood in his eyes. “So long as I have something to lean against,” he said, “and you keep it away from me.”

“It’s hurt,” Anton said. He sounded tired. “But not enough. The Infected got in the way.”

Automatically Dexter glanced toward Erskine and Saracen. He didn’t see them, but there was a hole in the wall of the hospital that hadn’t been there before. He hoped that meant they were inside. Wreath had reached Tanith, his bad arm tucked close to his side. She was stirring, pushing herself up onto her elbows but not making much progress.

There came a thud. Dexter looked back toward the Grotesquery and saw Ghastly rolling to his feet, head shaking as if to throw off a daze. China zipped around the Grotesquery, capturing its attention, and then she darted away. Dexter seized that moment to fire a beam at it, but it wasn’t as powerful as he’d meant. At least it hit, leaving a smoky crater in the middle of the Grotesquery’s back, but when Dexter lifted his other hand to shoot again the Grotesquery teleported to a location only ten feet away.

It lifted its unravelling arm. Rover shoved at the air and it stumbled, but its talons lashed out at them. Anton got in the way and caught its talons on his sword with a grunt, but its muscles contracted and the claws spun off in an S-shaped motion that cut right under Anton’s guard. He stepped away but it still raked across his clothes and sent him spinning.

Bliss stepped in and punched and the Grotesquery went reeling, dangerously close to where Wreath was chivvying Tanith to her feet. She picked up her sword and pulled herself up on Wreath’s shoulder, and stabbed the Grotesquery in its calf. It swung around, the strips of flesh around its talons lashing out, and Wreath’s bad hand snapped up to block them with the cane he didn’t have.

Shadows exploded between them and flung the Grotesquery back, and Dexter ducked as it shot past him and Larrikin. It hit a wall with a crunch, but Dexter looked at Wreath. His necromantic object had been broken. He shouldn’t have been able to do that.

“Shit,” he said when he saw the shadows coalescing around Wreath’s bad wrist in the shape of a gauntlet. Wreath dropped Tanith and tried to yank it off, but the shadows swallowed his other hand and spread down his shoulders, and wherever they landed they formed the shape of oily black armour. The outlying shadows wheeled and pulsed around him like living things.

“No,” Dexter could hear Wreath saying, his voice terrified. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no—”

The shadows contracted and Wreath’s voice cut off, his body arching. He fell to his knees and Dexter saw the sheen of the armour’s back-plate as he caught himself on his hands. The shadows swelled up and over his head and settled like a dying wind. Tanith tried to drag herself away, her eyes wide.

Then Wreath— _the armour_ —straightened, its slitted visor looking past Dexter and Rover toward the Grotesquery striding toward it, and in a burst of shadows it was gone.

Anton got to his feet, his sword in one hand and the other clutching his side. Dexter leaned on Rover to turn, already filling his palm with energy. The Grotesquery moved toward them, bleeding from a dozen places and its step hitched where Tanith’s sword was impaled in its leg, but not beaten. Behind it, Dexter saw Saracen helping Erskine out from the hole in the hospital wall, their clothes tattered but both alive.

With a collective grim breath the fighters rallied.

Sound broke the night. The sound of a car horn. Dexter saw Rover’s eyes widen, and he pulled Dexter away. Anton turned and jumped back. Dexter caught a glimpse of the others scattering through the dizzy swirl of his throbbing head, but he realised that the brightness was due to headlights.

A truck shot between them and turned a one-eighty so fast its wheels should have left the ground, and tried to, but didn’t. Its bed was full, but Dexter didn’t see what was in it before one of them had been kicked out and collided with the Grotesquery’s face, and burst into a million tiny moving pieces.

It was a beehive. It was a beehive and Skulduggery was in the back with two more of them, clutching the edges as the driver gunned the engine and shot forward just before a boil on the Grotesquery’s arm spat acid at it. The truck wheeled around from another direction, cutting turns that would’ve rolled it if Skulduggery weren’t pressing it flat with air. Dexter caught a glimpse of Hopeless in the driver’s seat.

Skulduggery kicked another hive out of the truck, and the angry swarm around the Grotesquery grew. It swatted at the bees with its hand and its talons, but no matter how many it might have killed the cloud didn’t seem to diminish. The Grotesquery teleported away, but Hopeless and his truck were already there, wheeling about for Skulduggery to face it. The next beehive hit the ground, but the bees blamed the Grotesquery anyway, rising up in an angry throng.

“What a novel approach,” China observed, “and completely typical.”

“They’re not meant to be here,” Anton said in a low voice.

“The Dead Men never split up,” Dexter said simply.

The Grotesquery shook its head like a dog and teleported again, and this time it landed on the top of the truck’s cab. Skulduggery looked up and shoved at the air. Hopeless slammed on the brakes and the Grotesquery shot overhead, hitting the ground with a crunch. Hopeless gunned the engine and the truck surged forward. Skulduggery leapt off the back. The cab door opened and Hopeless threw himself out, and Dexter saw him tumble over and over, and come to rest, but almost at once he was up. Saracen ran toward him. Erskine slumped against the wall, lowering the hand he’d used to buffer Hopeless’s fall.

The truck hit the Grotesquery with a shriek of metal as it was rising. Both truck and Grotesquery slammed into a wall with the sound of grinding stone. Skulduggery got to his feet and clicked his fingers, and he threw a fireball at the truck’s hood. The cab exploded. There was a medley of thuds and patters as debris flew, and then another explosion. Sparks jetted up into the sky. Dexter heard a shriek, an ear-piercing shriek that made his head ring and his knees shake. He heard Rover groan beside him. Darkness boiled from where the truck had pinned the Grotesquery to the wall, and it rose up into the air and dissipated.

The fire settled into a spluttering roar. Dexter exhaled and slumped in Rover’s grip. Against the firelight he saw the Erskine’s silhouette meet with Saracen and Hopeless’s. The four of them turned to walk back to the others across a courtyard littered with bodies.

Dexter risked a glance up at Ghastly. He was standing still, his face blank. The others got close enough to be seen in spite of the flames behind them. Erskine, his face tight, on the end and furthest from Hopeless. Saracen next to him. Hopeless, grimy from his dive and wet-cheeked, with that particular pinch around his eyes that spoke of a migraine. Skulduggery, hatless and expressionless, the white bone of his skull flickering with light. He looked at Ghastly.

Without a word Ghastly turned and walked away.


	23. Bad things

The Sanctuary wasn’t at a standstill, but it was sluggish. Battles sometimes ended that way, as if everyone was too tired to properly gather their wits. Dexter felt that was unfair, given that most people in the Sanctuary hadn’t done anything. Especially since Guild was striding around like he’d defeated the Grotesquery single-handedly.

They were in Hopeless’s office. ‘They’ consisted of Hopeless himself, Saracen, Dexter and Rover. Hopeless was in his chair, writing in his Elder Journal. Saracen and Rover had taken the couches. Larrikin was sprawled on his back, chattering at the ceiling in a variety of languages about nothing in particular. He’d started out talking about the ceiling architecture. He was now onto baby booties. Dexter had no idea where the connection was, but that was okay. He hadn’t been fully listening. He just wanted Larrikin to talk. The moment Larrikin stopped talking was the moment they were in trouble.

He had the feeling Rover knew that, too. He’d always known Rover would take the news about Skulduggery the best. He hadn’t expected the panic attack, but he’d known Rover would be there with them, trying to figure it out. Which was why Rover was talking. If he could talk, things weren’t as bad as they really were.

He’d done that a lot during the war. Some days it was the only thing holding them all together. That was what Rover did. He held people together.

“—and my throat is getting parched so I am going to let someone else talk for once and maybe update me on some really important things that had to have happened in the past two days which I know nothing about before I go to help the Edgleys pack up their house. You’re on, Elder Chatterbox.”

Dexter glanced down at him with something close to surprise, but didn’t quite make it. Rover grinned up at him past the chair’s arm. “Because we all know Hopeless is a chatterbox,” Dexter said dryly.

“Did you ever ring him up on his phone? He gave me tired ears.”

Saracen laughed. It died quickly. Dexter wanted to smile, but he didn’t want to try to smile and fail, so he didn’t. Rover snapped his fingers. “Come on, come on. I came in here for a Sanctuary update and you guys are leaving me in the dark. Dusk?”

“Escaped,” Saracen said.

“Sanguine?”

“God only knows where,” Dexter said.

“The Baron?”

“Dead as a doornail.”

“The armour?”

Hopeless shook his head.

“No one knows,” Dexter answered, and looked up at the ceiling, his arms folded across his chest. He was familiar with this feeling of regret. The feeling of a comrade he could have liked, if he’d spent more time with them, lost before that chance could be taken. “We told Morwenna, but she hasn’t—”

Someone knocked on the door. Hopeless tapped the desk with his knuckles and the door opened, and Bliss loomed in the entrance. He stepped in and closed the door, and because his gaze was fixed on Hopeless, Dexter tensed. Without breaking that gaze, Bliss activated the privacy ward on the door.

‘May I help you?’ Hopeless signed.

“You’re a mind-reader,” said Bliss.

It wasn’t a question. Saracen was on his feet before the first word was out of his mouth. Larrikin sat up. Dexter pushed himself off the sofa. Hopeless sat back, a flicker of surprise covered quickly by resignation.

“How do you know that?” Dexter asked quietly. There was no point in denying it. Bliss wasn’t the type to be convinced of something opposite to what he already knew was the truth. Bliss lifted an eyebrow at him.

“You didn’t honestly think such a secret could _remain_ a secret forever.”

“How did you know?” Dexter repeated, his tone steely.

“The Baron,” said Bliss, “would never have done something as recklessly extravagant as attacking a mortal reunion, even a reunion of Ancient blood, unless he had reason to do something so extraordinarily out of character that no one could predict it.”

“That’s it?” Larrikin demanded. “You figured it out just from that?”

Bliss shook his head. “It was simply the keystone piece to put every other clue together. Hopeless was Meritorious’s man, and Meritorious was the most successful leader in the rebellion. He was the first to know about Mevolent, and the only one to avoid his assassins. Your own reputation defies the pattern of life and death in the universe. For every member of your unit to survive two centuries of war, performing the missions you did, rejects every logical assertion of the battlefield. And Mevolent was not the kind of man to fixate on any single person unless he had due cause. Yet he fixated on Hopeless.”

“That’s not much,” said Saracen.

“Not long before the war’s end, my sister discovered something about the Dead Men which made her unbearably smug. She took great delight in refusing to tell me what it was. Yet soon after the truce was struck, something occurred which left her shaken—if not afraid—beyond anything I’ve seen since she was a girl. Did you blackmail her?”

This last was asked directly of Hopeless. Hopeless signed, ‘She was being careless with information pertaining to someone I care about.’

“So you showed her what it means to be a mind-reader,” Bliss said. “She would never have taken you seriously without a proper display of power. Her arrogance would not permit that.”

Hopeless shrugged and didn’t respond. Bliss stared at him.

“The Baron can’t’ve known about Hopeless,” Rover broke in. “If he did, why didn’t he tell everyone else?”

“It would have weakened the morale of his own people.”

“It would have weakened the morale of ours, too,” Saracen pointed out. “The international sorcerers would never have submitted to working with Meritorious if they’d known he had a true mind-reader in his pocket. And _our_ forces would have turned on Hopeless in an instant. Sorcerers don’t like people who are too powerful unless they have a way to control them.”

“It wasn’t worth the risk for the Baron.”

“Not worth the risk?” Rover echoed. “ _Not worth the risk_? It would have crippled us!”

Bliss turned his blank gaze on Larrikin. Larrikin sat back and crossed his arms almost rebelliously. “Mevolent didn’t let that information slip either,” Bliss noted, “because both of them understood the war could not be won in such a way. They were men of faith.”

Hopeless’s fingers drummed on the desk-top. Bliss glanced at him. “You know it also, Hopeless. Whether or not any of the rebels believed in the Faceless Ones was inconsequential. They fought the war based on the threat the Faceless Ones posed. Anything which compromised that belief could not be borne.”

Dexter shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

‘It’s a matter of motive,’ Hopeless signed. ‘Telling our people the truth about me could have made the rebellion collapse from inside, but only because they feared me.’

“It would have been demeaning,” Bliss said simply. “The Baron disliked Vile for the same reason. Vile was fearsome—so fearsome he drew attention away from the Faceless Ones, where the Baron felt _everyone’s_ attention should fall, for all time. But Vile was simply a purveyor of death. Hopeless is much, much more.”

“A redhead sadly lacking in a sex drive?” Rover suggested, and this time Dexter did laugh at the impassive look Bliss gave him.

“He’s omniscient,” Bliss said. “Omniscience has long been a divine trait. If Hopeless is as near to divine that a man can be, then how could he be killed?”

“You’d be surprised,” Saracen muttered. Bliss ignored him.

“The implication of power demeaned the faith of Mevolent’s forces and the fear he tried to strike in ours.”

“That still makes no sense,” Dexter said flatly. “Winning is winning. If winning by making people afraid of Hopeless drove more of them to Mevolent’s cause, then he had every reason to want it to happen.”

Hopeless shook his head. ‘He was afraid,’ he signed. ‘Using my power to win would have been admitting that I’m more powerful than the Faceless Ones. M couldn’t do that. That’s why he had to break me first.’

“But he didn’t,” Saracen said fiercely.

‘So he never said anything. If I’d died, he could have carried on secure in the knowledge that I was only a man, and I’d have been out of the way. If he’d turned me, the fact that I’d broken would have proven the same, and he could have used me as a tool. Since I did neither he couldn’t admit to himself, let alone to the world at large, that they should be afraid of something other than his gods.’

There was a moment of silence. “That still makes no sense,” Dexter said finally.

Hopeless shrugged. ‘It’s human emotion. Even M needed security. My existence threatened that, and he couldn’t acknowledge it even to himself.’

“So you have no idea the Baron knew?”

‘No. Maybe M only told him after. Or maybe he already had, and I was too busy trying to keep my sanity to pick up on that little detail.’

“Yet you know a great deal about Mevolent’s mindset,” Bliss observed.

Hopeless gave him that particular tired, worldly look. ‘I spent decades listening to what he didn’t say from across the council table. Of course I know him. M and BV were cut from the same cloth. BV needed to prove to himself that I could be beaten. That’s why he attacked the reunion.’

“To prove that you weren’t _actually_ omniscient,” Saracen said, and shook his head, flopping back on the sofa. “Who’d have thought the bad guys would have such complicated emotions? Except you, Hopeless. You don’t count. You’re _omniscient_.”

Hopeless’s mouth twitched in what would have been a smile, if it had managed to make it to his face.

“Is there anything else you want, Bliss?” Dexter asked, leaning against Rover’s couch. Bliss looked at Hopeless still. He’d barely taken his gaze away, except those handful of times to glance at someone else.

“You can’t read people currently, can you?” Bliss asked. Saracen threw up his hands.

“How could you possibly know _that_?”

“He would have known what I was here to say. You cover well, Hopeless. But you were surprised when I mentioned it. And you would have already found evidence against the traitor, if you could read their mind to find it.” Bliss inclined his head. “Serpine did what Mevolent could not. He broke you.”

Bliss was too observant for their own good, Dexter thought bitterly, glancing at Hopeless. Hopeless gazed down at the open Journal on his desk. Then he rose and looked Bliss in the eye, and Dexter saw his eyes dilating. Hopeless’s eyes always dilated when he read people deeply—seeing past layers and layers no one knew was there. Usually it was a nearly instantaneous reaction. Now it happened in slow motion, because Hopeless was _forcing_ himself to read Bliss’s mind, forcing himself past the block of his own fear.

His stance shifted. His face blanked to Bliss’s familiar impassiveness. His eyes went peacefully cold, but alien, pupils so thick no hint of colour could be seen around them. He looked at Bliss. Bliss looked back.

“Interesting,” he said, and then he turned around and walked out of the office.

 

The heat had broken and rain had come in the night. The ground was still damp. Valkyrie tried not to look in the direction of the golf club, but it was hard not to imagine what it must look like now. They said it had taken the firefighters all night and the next morning to put it out. The incident was still splashed all over the news. Their names had been withheld; that was the only reason they didn’t have reporters at their doorstep. But it was only a matter of time. Family-wide massacres didn’t stay secret for long.

“Take this, please, dear,” her mother said, and Valkyrie took the box and trotted outside. It was heavy and she could barely see over the top, but she didn’t even groan under its weight, or complain. Things like that seemed really trivial now. The whole world had changed.

Valkyrie stopped on the curb and looked around. The sun was shining, but the air was damp from the rain. Some neighbours stood outside and watched them pack the truck. One of them waved. She managed to wave back with two fingers.

No, she thought. The world hadn’t changed. _They_ had. That was all.

“Valkyrie,” said Anton, and Valkyrie turned and handed the box to Erskine, who handed it up to Anton, who stood in the back of the moving truck. Valkyrie didn’t ask where he’d gotten it. Shudder wasn’t the kind of person you asked about things like that, and Erskine had barely said two words since he’d shown up.

At least he’d shown up. Ghastly hadn’t. Dexter hadn’t. Saracen hadn’t. Skulduggery hadn’t. Hopeless hadn’t. Rover had, but late and with a forced bounce in his step, chirruping about news from the Sanctuary. He’d pouted when Valkyrie pointed out that Tanith had already told them everything. Well, most of it. They hadn’t known that Scrutinous and Random managed to erase most of the memories of the other survivors. The magical parts, at least. All they knew was that people had attacked the golf club, resulting in a massacre. That was horrible enough, without remembering the rest.

Like the part where the rest of the family had been found in Clearwater hospital, dead long before Erskine and Saracen had gotten there.

Tanith stood by the garden, keeping watch with her sword hidden under a raincoat. Valkyrie took one last glance around, hoping that the rest of the Dead Men would appear out of nowhere and this horrible tension would go away. She turned to head back inside when a gentle breeze buffeted her hair. She stopped and frowned. The breeze had been coming from the opposite direction just before.

She glanced at Tanith. Tanith looked back and tilted her head at the side of the house. Valkyrie risked a look behind her, where Rover was complaining about blisters and hernias to Erskine, and then hurried off through the garden and around the house. Skulduggery was waiting there, in his disguise, leaning back against the wall. He straightened when he saw her.

“There you are,” she exclaimed, but quietly, because he seemed to be hiding from the others. She felt annoyed and relieved at once, and crossed her arms, scowling. “Tanith said something awful happened, but she couldn’t tell me what. I didn’t even believe her, until half of you didn’t show up this morning.”

Skulduggery hesitated. “Some of us … needed some time off from each other.”

“Since when have any of you needed any time off from each other?” Valkyrie demanded.

“Since now,” Skulduggery said. “So you’d better not tell the others I was here.” He hesitated again. “Well, maybe Rover. And Anton _might_ be alright with it. But not Erskine. And not Ghastly.”

“Ghastly didn’t even come.”

Skulduggery looked out across the road through the foliage. “No,” he said softly, “I’m not surprised.”

Valkyrie felt a chill run down her back and settle in her gut. “What happened?”

Skulduggery shook his head. “It’s nothing you need to hear. But I’m not going to be around for a while.”

“How long?”

He shrugged in that effortless way that came with being a skeleton. “Probably forever.”

Valkyrie forced a laugh. “You’re kidding me.”

“No. It’s alright. The others are good teachers. You’ll learn a lot from them.”

That chill deepened. “I don’t want to learn from them,” Valkyrie said. Skulduggery tilted his head. Valkyrie amended, “I don’t want to learn _only_ from them. I want to learn from all of you. You’re Dead Men. You’re heroes. You’re _legends_. It’s not the same if I can’t learn from all of you. And you’re the most interesting.”

“The most interesting?”

“You’re a skeleton, for one. How many people can say they learn magic and martial arts from a _skeleton_?”

“Ah,” he said. “So you’re only interested in me for my looks.”

Valkyrie laughed again, and this time it came out genuine, but Skulduggery didn’t laugh back, even when she waited. “Seriously,” she said after a moment. “Where are you going? Why?”

“I’m going to take back the armour.”

Something was really, really wrong. Anton had shown up first, with the truck, and since he barely smiled anyway Valkyrie hadn’t noticed anything was off. But Erskine had come with him, and he had been on edge, one wrong word away from snapping. Rover was acting normal as ever, but that was the thing: it was an _act_. And none of the others were there. The Dead Men did nearly everything together. They’d saved what was left of Valkyrie’s family. Why wouldn’t they come to help pack the house? It was exactly the kind of thing they’d do: show up together, like a slapstick band of brothers, and laugh and make fools of each other while getting the job done, and all the while help Valkyrie feel as if the world hadn’t fallen apart.

“You’re going alone?” she asked, and crossed her arms. “You can’t go alone. Saracen always said the Dead Men never split up.”

“Sometimes things happen,” Skulduggery said, “and they don’t ever really go away, and one day, they show up again and there’s nothing you can really do to stop it.”

“You’re acting like you killed someone.” Skulduggery looked at her. Valkyrie waited for him to make a smart remark, but when he didn’t she felt the blood drain out of her face and the rock in her stomach become a block of ice. “You didn’t.”

“I killed a lot of people,” Skulduggery said. “That shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“I mean someone _important_.”

“Everyone’s important to someone.”

“Skulduggery—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does too, if it’s making you go after _Vile’s armour_ alone,” she snapped.

“My armour.”

Valkyrie opened her mouth. Closed it. Stared. “What?”

“My armour,” Skulduggery repeated. “I was Lord Vile.”

“But Lord Vile was evil. He killed thousands and thousands of people. He killed Ghastly’s mother.”

“Yes.”

That was all he said. Just ‘yes’. Just ‘yes’, as if that news didn’t turn everything Valkyrie thought she knew upside-down. Oh, she’d seen bits and pieces of ruthlessness. Hadn’t he agreed with Bliss when Bliss said to leave people in the golf club? It was one of those things Valkyrie was trying not to think about, because there was a reason for it and it wasn’t like she could do anything about it anyway.

This was different. That was making the hard choice for the sake of the many. She’d heard stories about Lord Vile, not just from the Dead Men. About how evil Vile was. How many people he’d murdered.

That was why Ghastly wasn’t here. That was why there were no more jokes, no more camaraderie. It was like this huge, horrible secret had ripped a hole in them. Which it had. The Dead Men’s dead man had murdered his best friend’s mother.

“Have a good life, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery said, and he straightened his hat and then turned and disappeared down the back of the house.

 

The first thing Erskine noticed when he stepped into Corrival’s mansion was that it made sounds echo really well. Not well enough that he could hear actual words in the shouting, but enough that he could actually _hear_ the shouting from what must have been the backyard all the way in the front of the house.

He didn’t bother to take off his coat, though he glanced out the window as he made his way to the living-room. It was just coming up on twilight. He was a bit late. They knew it, too, judging by the pile of rescued luggage beside the door.

“They’ve been like that all day,” said Corrival from the living-room doorway, a glass of whiskey in his hand. “It’s mostly Beryl. Screaming, sobbing, hysterics. Not that I can blame her, but that’s not going to be a problem wherever you’re taking them, I hope.”

“No,” Erskine said flatly. “That happens a lot, actually. I have to talk to you.”

Corrival lifted an eyebrow. “You’re late enough as it is. Shouldn’t you get going?”

“This won’t take long,” Erskine said, still mechanical. He felt as if he had nothing left in him for any emotion. Emotion was a bad thing in battle unless you could channel it into your objective. Erskine had never been good at that. He needed to be calm to gain his full advantage in a fight. Needed to lock all his emotions away in a box, where they wouldn’t get in the way.

That was why Dusk had escaped. Erskine’s box hadn’t been big enough. It was only now, after the battle, after Erskine had spent the last two days trying to find some measure of stability while not sleeping, that he’d managed to find some detachment. It was the bad kind. It was the only kind he could get.

But one thing that had become clear was that something needed to change. There were too many secrets. Too many things entrusted to only a handful of people. Erskine was tired of secrets. Ordinarily the Dead Men, his brothers, would have been the first people he went to. Not now. He couldn’t go to them now. And there was only one person he trusted enough to ask for help, once Hopeless wasn’t an option.

“Well?” Corrival asked, and Erskine realised he’d been drifting, staring out the window, his hands clenched inside his coat pockets. He turned toward Corrival, looked into his face, and felt numb.

“I think you’re wrong,” he said, and Corrival blinked.

“Wrong? Wrong about what?”

“About everything,” said Erskine. “About the mortals. About how we handle them. About fading back into the shadows and pretending we _want_ to put them first, even when they don’t deserve it. They’re not the favourites, Corrival. Why should we have to sacrifice our lives, our freedom, our right to choose just to make them feel better about their place in the world?”

For a long moment Corrival stared at him, his face blank. Erskine thought he saw disappointment in his eyes. Once upon a time, seeing disappointment on Corrival’s face had been one of Erskine’s worst fears. Now he felt nothing except a stab of guilt at something else he recognised but hadn’t expected: hurt.

“That’s what you want to tell me?” Corrival asked in a low voice. “You’ve walked by my side for a century, watched me try to make sure mortals would be protected, and all this time you thought—what? That we should rule over them?”

“No,” Erskine said, and all of a sudden he felt tired. So tired he just wanted to curl up and sleep, and couldn’t. He wasn’t unaware of the irony here, that he was still be protecting the secret that Hopeless had given him. If it weren’t for Hopeless, Erskine would still believe what he had at the end of the war. If it weren’t for Hopeless, Erskine wouldn’t have something he wanted to protect.

But he did. And whether because of Hopeless or not, Erskine owed that something more than to give up on it when it had fulfilled its purpose far beyond his wildest dreams.

“No,” he repeated, and watched some of the tension ease out of Corrival’s face. “I used to—” Hints of the tension returned. “—but not anymore. But we don’t have to hide from them, Corrival.”

“If we revealed ourselves—”

“It won’t be easy,” Erskine cut in. “But it can be done. I can prove it to you. I can _show_ it to you. If you come with me and the Edgleys. I can show you how mortals and sorcerers can coexist without either side losing.”

For another long moment Corrival regarded him. Erskine wondered what he was thinking. Then, finally, his old general nodded. “Let me get my coat.”


End file.
